Revelations 1 and 2
by TheRimmerConnection
Summary: In which Ford and Arthur are stuck in the hold of a ship, in the dark, with somebody, or something... then let out...at 10,000 feet, and the question is asked: can they possibly behave themselves for the duration? Mild FordArthur, but I can't stop them...
1. Chocolate Pretzels

_A/N: Sorry for the delay in getting round to a new story - real life got horribly in the way! (The pretzels are largely because I've been craving them today and they don't seem to be making them any more _:(_ ) I lay no claim to anything you recognise, it is the work of DNA, I just like it too much to let it be...  
_

**Chapter 1 - Chocolate pretzels**

Arthur and Ford materialised in the dark, somewhere on board something that hummed and smelt like a spaceship. Ford's arm was still tightly locked around Arthur's, and their hands were all tangled together around Ford's electronic thumb. Arthur groaned,

'I _hate _teleporting,' he muttered. He coughed. The coughing didn't actually help very much at all with anything physical. His discomfort was due to a horribly fuzzy, light feeling in his head and an vague heaviness in his stomach and limbs. But coughing was all he could do at the moment, so as a last resort it would have to do.

Next to him, Ford took a very deep breath, as if trying to reflate himself after being sent through the sub-ether. He unwound his fingers from Arthur's, then wrapped them back around the free end of the little black stick and tugged. Arthur failed to let go, so Ford took hold of his fingers and prised them off, one by one. Arthur whimpered as Ford removed his last finger and unwound his arm from the crook of his elbow – clearly he had been psychologically depending on that contact.

'Ford, why is it always dark when we use that thing to arrive anywhere? Where are we anyway?' croaked Arthur. Ford did not answer for a second – he was too busy stuffing the thumb safely back into his satchel and rummaging around for something else, at last he pulled a packet of some sort out of the bag and said,

'Mmm – what?' Arthur sighed,

'Where are we, Ford?'

'In the hold, I think. I 'm pretty sure it was an automated response I got, so we're probably stuck here till we get wherever we're going...Arthur, are you wet?'

Arthur stopped hugging his elbows and tugged his mind round to think about his body – which, up to this point, he had been making a concerted effort not to do. He felt a cold sort of seepage around his posterior, which he was sure (and very relieved to be so sure) was too cold to have come from inside his dressing gown. It must, therefore, be coming from outside. He sniffed, hoping for clues to the wetness, but his addled senses refused to do any work just yet. He tentatively moved his hand down beside him and prodded at whatever it was he was sitting on,

'Eeugh!' he said, and tried to jump up. Unfortunately, his body wasn't quite ready for complex things, like standing, and his legs gave way and he fell onto Ford, or rather onto his satchel, which was still on his lap. Ford said,

'Ow!' grabbed hold of his dressing gown and heaved him back onto the damp thing on which they sat. He checked that Arthur wasn't about to fall on him again, and then wiped his hands on Arthur's sleeve. The bit he had grabbed had obviously been the bit Arthur usually used for sitting on, and Arthur felt his brain go light again as that thought trundled past it. Ford was rummaging in his bag again, and with a little 'Ahah!' of triumph, he flicked on a torch. The beam fell on Arthur's resigned face. He was looking bedraggled in the way that only a man who has just been whooshed through the sub-ether in his dressing gown, without even a single pint of beer to cushion his system, then deposited on something wet, in the dark, can. Ford almost laughed, then decided it might be more politic not to, and proffered the packet he had found in his bag. Arthur looked doubtfully at the brown shapes in the bag, then up at Ford, who explained cheerfully,

'Chocolate-covered pretzels...at least, I think they are. It's no use looking at me like that – they're all I've got. I wasn't actually in a position to pick up the chef's choice. They're full of salt and carbohydrate and there's enough protein to liven you up a bit.' Arthur still looked doubtful and sniffed at the bag. His nose still wasn't doing its job, so he decided that Ford would just have to be trusted,

'It sounds revolting,' he said, and brought the single chocolatey twist up close to his nose, hoping that the proximity might overcome his nasal reluctance. There was still no joy on this front however, and Arthur just hoped that the failing would carry over to his sense of taste and render any unpleasantness unnoticeable. He popped it in his mouth and chewed. No, either his taste was unaffected by his lack of nasal aptitude, or the sense of smell had come back...actually, it didn't taste too bad at all. A little odd, but not nasty...and yes, his sense of smell must have come back, for as he sniffed a fourth time, the quality of the air around him became very apparent.

The whole room smelt dank...slimy? Brackish maybe...like a bucket you leave in your garden, full of vegetable peelings, that gets filled with rainwater and that you are then too cowardly to touch, so that it grows a coating of bubbly green slime in the sunshine and doesn't get emptied until you trip over it one day and are subsequently forced to spend several hours in the shower. Well...maybe not quite that bad, but definitely getting there.

Ford was still watching him intently, forcing more of the pretzels upon him, checking to see when he lost his greenish tinge so that he could stop looking after him. The torchlight hurt Arthur's sensitised eyes, and he pushed it down. They were sat on something stripy that was definitely the source of the smell. Feeling a little more generally stable, Arthur pushed himself back off it and crouched next to Ford, still not trusting himself to stand up. Ford seemed utterly unconcerned at the wetness assailing his bottom, and was now munching his way through the remainder of the pretzels, his torch between his legs, shining suggestively down onto the wet thing beneath him.

There was a sound like the gurgle of a water-bed that needs the air getting out of it, and someone spoke, their voice light and bubbly, and thoroughly unexpected,

'Hello?!' it said inquisitively. Arthur turned his head frantically to see where the voice had come from. When no body was apparent, he grabbed Ford's knee and squeaked,

'Did you hear that?!' Ford picked at his back teeth with a finger and said nonchalantly,

'I think so...' Though Arthur had the distinct impression that Ford's shaking knee was closer to displaying his true reaction to the disembodied greeting than was his tone of voice. He was just wondering whether he should mention this, when the voice spoke once more,

'Hello?' it asked again.

Arthur did the only sensible thing: he passed out.

* * *

_Where have Ford and Arthur materialised? Why is it so wet and smelly? Who or what is the owner of the mysterious voice? And given the condition of the floor, will Arthur come round in a state fit to be seen, or will he drown in foul smelling wetness before he gets to prove that Ford isn't as cool about this as he looks? Reviews are sure to stop me doing what I ought to be doing and get me writing another chapter!_


	2. Dampness

_A/N: Wow! I was all set to be nice and quick updating this, then real life did a whole lot of horrible things to me, and well...Sorry for the wait anyway - thank-you, lovely reviewing people - I might not have stayed up till one am to get this one out if it weren't for you :-D_

**Chapter 2: Dampness**

Ford flicked the torch around the room. The thin beam picked out stacks of blue and white striped _somethings_, neatly ranged round the walls. They had the glistening uniformity of a group of objects destined to be 'stock'. He flashed the light down again. Arthur lay on his back in about half an inch of water, which lapped darkly around his hair and the bottoms of Ford's shoes. Behind his shoes, it washed around the base of another of the blue and white things. It was oozing gently into the water, and Ford was sure he felt it tremble as he wriggled his wet bottom in discomfort. It was a mattress: an extremely comfortable (if very wet), pocket-sprung mattress. And it was humming.

Ford got up. He poked Arthur with his toe, but Arthur didn't move. Ford bent down, his satchel swinging dangerously from his shoulder, mere inches from Arthur's nose. He drew his electronic thumb from it once more and prodded tentatively at the mattress. It undulated along its length, sending little waves out into the water. Ford stood up quickly,

'Was that you?' He asked, feeling slightly foolish, but reminding himself that he had come across worse in the past.

'Yes, flurble...what's your name?' it asked innocently. Ford paused for a second to consider, then pushed the thumb back into his satchel and said,

'Ford Prefect, what's yours?'

'Zem!' It said happily, and Ford reached surreptitiously for his copy of _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_. The mattress silomed one end of itself up out of the water and appeared to take a look around,

'Somebody,' it announced with a gurgle, 'Is lying on the floor.'

'Yes, I know,' said Ford, 'He's called Arthur Dent.'

'Oh, voon,' said the mattress, rearing even higher, apparently to get a better look, 'Why,' it said, laying particular stress on the word, 'is he lying there like that?' Ford glanced down at Arthur,

'Because he fainted,' he said, thinking as he said it that it would probably be a good idea to get him up off the floor soon. The mattress seemed to consider for a moment, then it deflated a little, obviously deciding that fainting was a bad thing. It released itself and sank rapidly onto the floor, sending a tidal wave of stale water cascading across Arthur's face and into Ford's shoes,

'Globber,' it globbered. Arthur spluttered and woke. He became aware very quickly that he would have been better off staying out of it, as he now seemed to be soaked from head to toe and his nose was full of stench,

'Oh, really. This is too much.' He muttered irritatedly. Then he coughed and pushed himself off the floor,

'Hello, Arthurdent!' said the mattress cheerily. Arthur conducted a brief negotiation with his legs to keep himself upright, narrowly won the exchange, and stared at Ford,

'What was _that_?' he asked, with commendably low panic levels,

'Zem.' Explained Ford patiently, 'Here.' He thrust the _Hitchhiker's Guide_ at Arthur and looked back at the mattress,

'Um...' he started, uncertain as to how he might put his question sensitively, he decided he couldn't, and forged ahead, 'D'you mind if we sit on you?' he asked. Arthur took a step closer to him, still clutching the _Guide_ and looking desperately worried. He lost his footing on the wet floor, barrelled into Ford, and sent them both sprawling on the mattress, whether it liked it or not.

'Not at all!' laughed the mattress, and willomied under them.

'So...' Ford continued, trying to break a silence he was finding rather awkward, particularly as Arthur's hand was fumbling unconsciously in the vicinity of his groin as he attempted to raise himself, and it was having an unfortunate effect upon Ford, 'what's it like being a mattress?' The mattress wendled itself deeper into its puddle,

'What's a mattress?' it helvoed inquisitively, Ford raised his eyebrows and grabbed Arthur's elbow as it came sailing past the end of his nose. He hauled Arthur around so that he was sitting in a more or less respectable, upright position,

'You are,' he said. Then deciding he may as well add to his hitchhiking knowledge, he asked, 'Why, what do you call yourself?'

'Zem!!' cried the mattress, in a way that could only be described as joyful. Ford sighed,

'No, I mean how do you refer to your species?'

'We are all Zem. What is your name?'

'Ford Prefect.' said Ford, and to prevent what he feared was inevitable, he added, 'And this is Arthur Dent. Say hello, Arthur.' Arthur wearily said,

'Hello,' at the same moment that the mattress piped up,

'Hello, Arthur!'

Arthur put out his hand and clutched Ford's arm, feeling very much in need of a little reassurance. He was sitting on an alien spaceship on a mattress that seemed to be alive and fairly chatty. That, he could cope with. That was not a problem, given the unlikely things he had seen during his recent travels with Ford. However, he was also wet and therefore starting to get cold. He had not eaten properly for a day or so, he was still suffering from an unprecedented shortage of tea, and he had a horrible feeling that this pervasive smell was going to linger in his dressing gown long after they had managed to get off this particular gem of a hitchhiker's berth. These were things with which he definitely could not cope.

'Ford, I'm rather wet,' he said. His tone of voice seemed to alert the mattress to a problem.

'Is it an unpleasant thing for you? To be wet, flurble?' Arthur nodded,

'Yes.' Then, because he felt that he could be misleading this innocent creature, he added, 'I mean, it is unpleasant in these circumstances. I don't have any spare clothes, you see...My planet was blown up with all my clothes in it, so if these ones are wet...well, I can't do very much about it. And I'm getting cold because I'm wet, and unless you know where there is a handy hot-air vent, I'm not going to dry out and get warm for quite some time. Then there's the fact of the smell. I don't suppose it bothers you particularly...I don't know whether you can smell it at all...I suppose not, not that I mind if this is a smell you like...I don't mean to offend. It's just that to the human nose it is not the nicest smell in the world. Then again you see, in other circumstances, I like to be wet. When I'm having a bath for example...not that I've had one for a while. They don't seem to have baths on many places outside Earth. It's all sonic showers and telekinetic sand scrubs and ionic dousing. Nothing as good as a nice hot bath. I don't suppose you've ever had a bath. It really is one of the most pleasant ways to spend an evening. Up to your neck in bubbles and such...If you can ignore the phone and the doorbell, that is.' He paused to think, while Ford rested his chin patiently on his hands. He was in no rush, after all. Arthur continued,

'I like getting wet in the rain too,' he said, his eyes misting over slightly, 'On a dark evening in winter, when you're on your way home from work, and it's Friday and you don't have a care in the world because you haven't been invited to anything over the weekend, and you know that the heating came on half an hour ago at home, so it'll be just warm enough when you get in, and it will just get warmer as you cool down. Then you know you can have a nice hot cup of tea and a bath, and come down in your dressing gown afterwards and eat some toast or a jacket potato and sit in front of the television all night...' He trailed off.

'Voom. It seems to me,' said the mattress, 'That this is something you miss greatly, and your present circumstances do little to alleviate your suffering. Therefore, I globber for you. Globber.' It globbered miserably into the darkness that encroached upon them as Ford's torch started to fade to a dull, irritating glow that lit their surroundings just enough to show that there were things to trip over, without showing exactly where their edges might be.

Arthur brought the _Guide _up in front of his face, and Ford watched multi-coloured patterns wander across his nose and cheeks, and little starbursts shine brightly, then fade in his eyes as the screen whirled its way through animation after animation. He sighed and looked away, starting to pick idly at the damp binding on the end of the mattress.

The _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy _states unequivocally that mattresses are slaughtered and dried out before being shipped out to worlds where the inhabitants get a much better night's sleep if they are lying on a a large, pocket sprung bag of fluff and orthopaedic contouring materials. As Arthur read, he realised that the example on which he now sat had either defied this rule, or had defied the greater law of nature which states, even more firmly, that things which have been slaughtered do not strike up cheery conversations with people who happen to sit on them (naturally, this does not refer to members of the Society for the Promotion of Happiness and an Interest in Novelty Xylophones After Death – a society whose second aim was born out of the desire of the founding members to have the acronym 'SPHINX', an idea which was scuppered by the need to add the 'After Death' bit in order to point the fact of their cheerful undead status. The main founder protests constantly that 'SPHINXAD' is the only correct form for Sphinx in the plural, and in fact, for some years now, the main agenda item of most society meetings has been thinking up ways to get this fact accepted across the Galactic disc).

Arthur brought down the _Guide. _It came as no surprise that mattresses were living creatures. After all he had seen and done since the Earth was destroyed, he very much doubted that anything could really surprise him any more. With the possible exception of getting a decent cup of tea served to him. He handed it back to Ford, who took it and shoved it back in his satchel.

'Arthur, you're getting me very wet.' Arthur, who had cosied in a little closer to Ford in an attempt to warm up, shifted himself back away, but not very far,

'Sorry,' he said. The mattress shivered from end to end.

'It seems odd to me,' it flurbled, 'that you have such great feelings for each other, yet you sit apart when it is warmer together.'

Arthur felt a cold little shudder start at his neck and wander listlessly down his spine, poking him with chilly fingers as it went. The source of his discomfort was hard to pinpoint, but it had something to do with what the mattress had just said. He shuffled a little further away from Ford and tried to urge his mouth back into speaking mode to answer this alien piece of soft-furnishing.

Ford stiffened at the mattress's words. He chose to ignore it, and fumbled in his satchel, but since there was nothing in there that he particularly wanted, he eventually had to admit defeat and close it again, covering for himself with a poor impression of a man who had had a sudden and desperate urge to check that his satchel was neatly packed.

The mattress mollied quizzically,

'Are you going to explain to me why this is, flurble?' Ford and Arthur looked up at the same moment and caught each others' eyes. They looked quickly away again.

Arthur was just considering saying something along the lines of, 'I don't know what you're talking about', when there was the sort of clanging, grinding sound you only get on very large cargo ships that are about to open their main hold doors and deposit their non-fragile freight onto whatever happens to be beneath them at the time.

The floor, as far as they could tell in the dark, tilted up into the air, and the mattress, with Ford and Arthur on it, began to slide down the new slope, following a small river of stagnant swamp-water. Ford snatched at his satchel, hauling it onto the mattress and winding the strap securely round his arm. Then he gripped the edge firmly with that hand and reached behind him to grab at Arthur, who had lost his sense of direction when the mattress started to move, and was in danger of rolling straight off the back. Ford dug his hand into Arthur's dressing gown and twirled a fistful of the wet wool around his hand, yanking Arthur up alongside him, before throwing his arm over his back and gripping the other side of the mattress with that hand, pinning Arthur under him.

They sailed out into thin air, like a pair of bedraggled moths pinned to a piece of rather luxuriously padded mount board, or the most ungainly flying carpet ever to have been seen in the universe. Around them, bales of more, heavy, soaking mattresses cascaded under the law of gravity, narrowly avoiding collisions with the humanoid-bearing individual, twirling and swooping in eye-bending patterns of spinning stripes as the air currents caught them. There was a faint light in the sky, but they didn't see it, both considering it to be a prudent move to keep their eyes firmly shut. Arthur's dressing gown skirts billowed around them as they dried out in the fast moving air, they yelled and the mattress cried,

'Wheeeee!' as they hurtled towards the ground.

* * *

_Why is the mattress alive? What kind of ship unloads its cargo at 10,000 feet? What does the mattress's perspicacious comment mean for Ford and Arthur? Does that matter, given that they are about to hit the ground at a fair rate of knots? Please review to find out and I'll try not to take so long this time!_


	3. Not Flying

_A/N: Many, many thanks to you reviewing people! You are all very lovely and it helps so much :-D Of course I'm happy to get a review any time SV - I was worried about you ;-) Fiddlesticks to the naughty alerts! _

_This chappy is dedicated to John 'Boggy' Marsh, the esteemed BBC newsreader/announcer who did such a lovely job of the announcing on the radio series, for the following reasons: because I have a BBC announcer fetish; because I admire someone who officially retires but then can't seem to stop coming back, practically every week, to do a spot of news-reading on Radio 2; and because everyone in my office cheers 'it's Johnny Marsh' when we hear him! Since this chapter involves a marsh, I thought I'd mention it ;-)_

* * *

**Chapter 3 – Not flying**

The fluttering leaf motions of the mattress were making Arthur feel rather nauseous. He stretched out his hand and blindly felt for the edge of the mattress to give himself something to cling to. Instead, his questing fingers found Ford's left hand where it performed its own clinging duties. Without any particular involvement on his part, Arthur's fingers decided that this was as good as anything to cling tightly to, and laced themselves as well as they could between Ford's straining digits.

Ford opened his eyes and they immediately started to water in the wind whistling past them as they gathered speed. Twisting his head slowly to the side, he looked at Arthur, whose head was nestled into his own shoulder, his eyes still screwed tightly shut. Ford's gaze drifted across to the touch that had caused him to open his own eyes, and he started to chew on his lip.

'Wheeee!' said the mattress again.

They were still an awfully long way above the ground, and it dawned on Ford that, while they may well have reached their ultimate velocity, it was, nonetheless, far too fast to consider hitting the ground, even on board something as springy as the mattress. He edged forward a couple of inches to peer over the edge and scanned the rapidly growing landscape for somewhere soft to land. The country over which they swooped was not promising. It consisted mostly of rolling hillside which was rapidly turning into what the tourist board might describe as 'Virgin moorland, untouched by man and reminiscent of the early stone-age dwellers whose primitive workings are still visible, three-hundred yards from the toilet block in the car-park'; but which the locals probably described as 'Blasted heath'. Particularly in Winter.

Over to the left, a group of trees huddled in a hollow, desperately trying to look like a picturesque pincushion of green in the burnt-bracken surroundings of the moor, but failing due to the scanty nature of their leaf-coverage and the fact that their centre had been hacked out by campers during a spell of unpleasant weather to make a sheltered spot for their camp-fire. To the right, a line of sturdier, more well-endowed trees struggled to retain enough soil around their roots for decency, on the banks of a river filled with boulders and half-frozen fish. Perhaps a watery landing would be softer, but Ford dismissed the idea of heading for the river when he observed the hardness of the boulders and the general whiteness of the water itself. In any case, the mattress' movements were carrying them in the opposite direction, and while Ford assumed that a little tugging on the sides could steer it to a certain degree, his limited experience in the field of mattress-piloting suggested that his efforts would, at best, fall short of inch-perfect landings, or indeed, major course corrections.

Then his tear-filled eyes made out a glinting, greenish-black area ahead and to the left. The green had the air about it of some very spiky reeds of the sort that grow in squelchy, brackish swamp-water, and the black held more than a touch of promise of being the water itself. The marshy ground appeared to cover an area large enough for even the most inexperienced mattress pilot to have a good chance of landing in it. It stretched for at least half a mile in either direction, in the hollow formed by three hills, one of which boasted the mothy pincushion on its other flank.

Ford looked back at Arthur again. If he was going to do any vigorous manoeuvring of the mattress, it would probably be as well for Arthur to be aware of what he was going to do.

'Arthur,' he said softly. There was no response. The wind had whipped his words straight over the edge of the mattress. He tried again,

'Arthur!' he bellowed, straight into Arthur's ear. Arthur opened one eye, and was disconcerted to find Ford only centimetres away from it.

'What?' he asked, in the low voice his leaping stomach seemed to demand. His lips were wobbled around by the gale blowing past them, and Ford merely looked at him in puzzlement. Arthur got the idea,

'What?!' he yelled back. Ford started to shout, but Arthur shook his head. He simply could not hear. Ford shuffled himself back to his original position, bringing his mouth level with Arthur's ear. He leaned in close, cutting out the wind-tunnel between them. His lips were almost brushing the tiny hairs that formed a light down on Arthur's lobes. Arthur closed his eyes again and felt Ford's breath warming his frozen ears. He let out a slight sigh, which he quickly stifled, but which had, in any case, been lost to the wind.

'I'm going to try to steer us towards some softer ground,' said Ford, 'Hang on.'

'I am,' said Arthur, but Ford couldn't hear him. Ford had nothing more to say, but he didn't move from where he was. He seemed to be searching for something to add, but there wasn't anything, and he soon realised that if he didn't get a shift on, they wouldn't have enough height left to make it to the haven of squidginess in the next valley.

He rearranged the positioning of his right hand to get a better placement for manipulating the side of the mattress. The position of his left hand was not ideal, but he didn't move it. He wriggled forward again and started to pull the right side of the mattress upwards. The new angle banked them slowly to the left and as they came more into line with the marshland, Ford pulled on the right hand side to bring them back to a roughly straight path. As he pulled, Arthur's fingers tightened on his own and he shuddered. No, Ford. Concentrate. Much more important things to think about right now...

The ground was coming up fast to meet them now, they were too low, they would clip the top of the hill if they didn't do something. Ford flung his right hand to the front edge of the mattress and pulled up, but that just tipped him and Arthur towards the back of the mattress, and if anything, increased their rate of descent. He hastily let it go, listening to the mattress' joyful cries as it resumed its rolling motion through the air. Suddenly a thought struck him,

'Arthur!' he yelled back. Arthur opened his eye again and painfully edged himself up level with Ford,

'Yes?' he shouted into his ear. Ford nodded his head back at his satchel where it was gripped under them,

'Get out my towel!'

'What?!'

'My towel; get it out of my satchel. Hold it out in the wind, it might slow us down a bit.'

Arthur looked extremely doubtful about this, but as he didn't fancy hitting the ground at this speed either, he rummaged around between them until he found the flap of Ford's satchel and slipped his right hand inside to find the towel.

Ford looked on anxiously as the seconds ticked past, before Arthur gave a triumphant yell and pulled the well-worn rectangle of fabric out of the bag. He grasped it by the corner and prepared to bring it out into the open. Ford drew a sharp breath,

'Arthur!' he hollered nervously at Arthur's cheek,

'Yes?!' bellowed Arthur in response,

'Don't you dare lose that towel.' Arthur gulped; the wind was very strong, and with only one hand...no, he would just have to use two,

'I'll have to use both hands, Ford,' he shouted. Ford nodded.

'Ford?' Arthur shouted again,

'What?'

'Don't lose _me_. Hold on to me, won't you?' Ford nodded again, feeling the blood draining from his head. He felt Arthur's fingers unclasp from his own. He couldn't let go of the mattress if he was going to keep it level and maintain their height for as long as possible, but he couldn't hang on to Arthur without letting go. He thought for a second, then spread his legs as wide as he could and hooked his toes under the reinforced edging of the top of the mattress on each side. By this means, he could just about hold it steady, though his calves were starting to ache already from applying the inwards pressure required. He let go of the mattress with his left hand.

Arthur grabbed his arm and used it to turn onto his back, then Ford wrapped his arm tightly over his chest, pulling Arthur in close to him. He could feel the frantic rise and fall of Arthur's chest as he breathed hard, and beneath that, the triple-time beat of his heart as it responded to an unsurprising adrenaline rush.

With two free hands, Arthur could now grasp both ends of the towel and hold it like a parachute into the wind.

According to the laws of physics, it should not have worked. The towel was too small, the mattress too heavy and fast, the amount of time available too short. So when they skimmed over the hilltop with inches to spare, Ford decided it must have been sheer will power holding them in the air. No matter how pleased with himself he felt, however, it was an unavoidable truth that they were still going to land, at speed, in the middle of a marsh. He jammed his toes further into the mattress, which flurbled happily, apparently unworried by the presence of sharp toes in its side or the rapid approach of ground. With his grip thereby assured, he gritted his teeth, and in the final seconds of air-travel, he recklessly let go with his right hand and hauled Arthur back under him, holding him firmly with both arms. The towel flapped wildly in Arthur's tight grip and he heard Ford shout,

'Brace yourself!' as the nose of the mattress ploughed into the marsh.

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_Since Ford and Arthur were kept rather too busy during this chapter to answer most of the questions posed at the end of Chapter 2, will the next chapter be any more forthcoming about those knotty problems? Reviews will help me to fend off the rogue plot bunny from another fandom that's been biting my ankles for three days now. I've told it that this is more important and I don't have time to do both, but I keep having to kick it into the corner - your reviews might help to pin it there (or I might be forced to give in and resign myself to late nights to get both written ;-)  
_


	4. Marsh

_A/N: Thanks for the reviews :-) I compromised and stayed up till 2am to get both written, then had to wait to upload them because my connection was down_:P _This chapter didn't look anything like this in my head, so if it is a little more distressing than I intended, blame Ford, not me - he was the one writing this really..._**  
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**Chapter 4 - Marsh**

The impact wrenched Ford's feet clear of the mattress, and he and Arthur shot forward into the freezing, slimy water. The mattress buckled in the middle as it absorbed the impact, then it flattened out again and lay quietly, trying to recover itself after its exciting descent. Arthur and Ford had both disappeared under the surface and all that could be seen was the billowing shape of Ford's towel, holding a pocket of air above the surface, which slowly deflated as the air leaked through the weave.

All around, in every direction, bales of mattresses were landing with squelching noises in the marsh, or with thudding or tearing noises on the heath. However, in the close vicinity of the live mattress, all was silence, the ripples on the water fading to nothing.

Then there was a splash and a hand shot out of the water, holding the deflated towel. The hand flapped around uselessly in the air until it met with the very corner of the mattress. It seized hold and pulled, and Arthur Dent's arm, followed by his shoulder, his head and the top of his chest were dragged above the water. He coughed a gasping whoop of air and spat brown gritty water. His hair was plastered down the sides of his head and his eyes were shut, with bits of weed pasted over them. He heaved again and the lower part of his chest appeared, encased in what might have been a pair of arms, but they were so covered in mud and weed that it was hard to tell. Whatever they were, they were clinging to Arthur as if their life depended on it, which it probably did. Arthur pulled again and Ford's head breached the surface, quashing any doubts that those were in fact arms.

Arthur laid his face down on the mattress, utterly exhausted, but looking back down his body through the weed at the thing that was attached to him, which at the moment resembled nothing more than Cousin It caught in a rain storm, seemed to give him a second burst of energy. He braced his arms across the mattress and heaved himself further on. One leg flopped onto the mattress, coated in thick, dark brown mud. Ford was half-way onto the mattress now, Arthur yanked his other leg up, grabbed Ford by his jacket lapels and dragged him fully on. He looked at him,

'Ford?' A note of panic came into his voice, 'Ford?' a lump started in his throat and he thought desperately, 'What to do? What to do?' He stood up with superhuman effort and grabbed Ford's ankles. Staggering under the weight, he brought them up level with his shoulders so Ford was practically standing on his head. Nothing happened. Arthur shook his head thoughtlessly, a vague image formed and he shifted his weight onto one leg, brought his other leg up into the air, swung it around and booted Ford squarely in the middle of his chest.

A jet of water gushed out of Ford's mouth and he coughed violently. Arthur lost his balance on the springy surface and fell down next to him, Ford's legs falling across his own. They lay gasping and coughing and looking very much like two primitive beings that had crawled out of the primordial ooze and really shouldn't have bothered. The mattress remained very still under them, apparently still not quite recovered from its own ordeal.

Eventually, when his breathing had calmed down a little and his arms felt like they might work for him again, Arthur pushed himself up so he was sitting next to Ford. His dressing gown hung in sheets of mud around him, clinging tightly to his torso and legs and flowing slimily across the mattress. Ford looked worse. His longer hair was no longer curly and bouncy, but hung in straight rat-tails down his face and neck. On some worlds at certain moments in history, certain groups of women would have paid a fortune to get the sort of mineral treatment their hair and skin was receiving. On Ford, however, it bore no resemblance to a beauty treatment. Globs of mud were stuck to his face and neck. His blazer was so filthy you couldn't make out the stripes; his jumper was so clogged up that the texture was indistinguishable; the cord trousers, likewise, were so coated that the cord pattern was gone and his shoes were oozing black water and bubbles. To add insult to injury, he had lost his tie.

Arthur reached over and pulled Ford upright by his shoulders, thinking that he couldn't lie there forever, and that if they didn't get moving soon, they were going to freeze to death. It wasn't exactly cold, but there was a stiff breeze blowing off the heath and the water definitely had been cold, and now it was being whipped off Arthur's skin and the result was rather less than warm.

Ford groaned and spat out another mouthful of water. His head lolled against Arthur's shoulder and Arthur felt his heart sink. He really, really didn't want to be in charge of the situation, but with Ford out of it, he would have to do something. He put his arm around Ford's shoulder and hugged him close, trying to warm him up. Water seeped over his fingers wherever he touched and he gave a little hiccup of sadness. This had, all things considered, been a bad day, and he saw no chance whatsoever of the situation improving. He had no idea where they were, no idea if there were any other intelligent life-forms on the planet, and no way of reaching them if there were. He was cold and hungry and exhausted and there was nothing he could do. He laid his cheek down on the sodden blanket that used to be Ford's hair, and put his other arm around his front, encircling him as a single tear trickled out of his eye and down his cheek.

The mattress gave a little sigh,

'Flurble,' it flurbled, 'It is good that you encircle this other being. Why does the one you hold not move, flurble?'

Arthur could not answer. Another tear rolled down his nose and he sniffed miserably.

'Are you sad, globber?' the mattress asked softly, 'Why are you sad?' It volued slightly, rocking Arthur and Ford gently. It seemed to think for a moment, a process that clearly cost it dearly, then it seemed to come to some conclusion,

'Ah, you are wet once more,' it lambooled, 'You do not like to be wet unless it is Friday. Whatever Friday is. I do not know if it is Friday, but it cannot be if you are so sad to be wet.' Arthur sniffed again.

'You must be taken where it is not wet so that you may dry out. Would this make you happy, flurble?' Arthur rubbed at Ford's arm and nodded slightly,

'Thank-you,' he choked out.

The mattress started to undulate along its length. Usually it would have flolloped joyfully upon being returned to the water, but it sensed the gravity of the situation and it found it hard to flollop with so much extra weight resting on it. Its looping action started to move it slowly through the water, towards dry land.

The motion brought Ford round a little and he opened his eyes halfway. He squinted up at Arthur,

'Where's my satchel...where's my towel?' Arthur smiled wetly at Ford's slight recovery, and fished around at his feet with one hand to find the towel. He picked it up by the corner and it hung in a muddy mass. He proffered it apologetically and Ford took it without any sign of distress or distaste and calmly put it around his neck.

'And my satchel?' He asked. Arthur looked slightly hurt, after all, he had just rescued Ford from drowning and had very nearly had to deal with everything on his own, and Ford hadn't even mentioned it. All he wanted were his possessions. He withdrew his arm from around Ford, and Ford looked at him surprised,

'Don't do that Arthur, it's keeping me warm.' Arthur reluctantly put his arm back, but still looked very upset,

'You might at least thank me,' he said.

'Mmm?' said Ford vaguely.

'I did save your life.'

'Oh...yes. Thanks Arthur.'

Arthur stared at him, Ford went on,

'Only the bag is rather important, unless you want to spend the rest of your life...wherever we are. My thumb is in there, and my copy of the _Guide, _so if we don't find it we're a bit stuck.'

Arthur rummaged through the soaking folds of his dressing gown, until he found a bit of mud that seemed to be more bag-shaped than gown-shaped. He brushed off the worst of the slime and handed it to Ford, who dropped it, not really having the strength to hold it yet. He opened the flap and reached inside. The first handful he pulled out was yet more squelching mud. The second was a crackling bag holding the soggy remains of some chocolate-covered pretzels. The third was his thumb, and the fourth was a weed-encrusted _Hitchhiker'sGuide to the Galaxy_.

He leant his head back on Arthur's shoulder as he scrubbed off the weed and frowned at the electronic book. Then he put it down in his lap and fiddled with the thumb. He pressed the maintenance button and it bleeped once and glowed red for a second before becoming silent once more. Arthur looked at him quizzically, then clutched at him as the mattress went over a particularly large hummock of swamp matter and tilted to the side. He let go as soon as they were stable again,

'Sorry,' he said. Ford gave him a very strange look that he couldn't quite place, and beneath them the mattress seemed almost to tut at them, though it was gloozing so heavily in the slime that it was difficult to tell.

* * *

_What is going to happen to Ford and Arthur once they get out of the swamp? Who is going to rescue them? What is going to happen to all the dead mattresses? Why is Ford being so unhelpful? Perhaps I can use reviews to browbeat Ford into allowing me a more upbeat chapter next time ;-D_


	5. Electronics

_A/N: It got so cold in my room today that I was able to put on my dressing gown for the first time this side of Summer, as a result of which, I became extremely happy and a whoosh of writing came over me, which is why this is such a quick update (yay dressing gowns!). I hope this is heading towards more upbeat for you, Are You Afraid of the Dark, I managed to slap Ford around the face a couple of times, and he seems to be letting me write what I want to write again, rather than going wandering off on his own ;-)_

**Chapter 5 - Electronics**

The mud was starting to dry on them in the chilly wind, and every move Arthur made was accompanied by an unpleasant tugging sensation as his muddy coating cracked and puckered his skin. He was cold and miserable and desperately wanted to get to a place where he could have a hot bath, a good, solid, hearty stew, and a cup of tea. He very much feared that every single one of these was now permanently beyond his reach.

The thumb blooped and fizzed. Ford pressed the button again and mud squidged out from around it. He flicked it hard and the mud flew off in all directions. It bleeped more healthily and Ford started to smile. Arthur looked at him hopefully, trying to forget how annoyed he was,

'Is it...working?' he asked tentatively. Ford shook it again, staring it down, daring it not to work,

'Mmm,' he said non-commitally. The thumb gave a small, apologetic clicking sound, then all of a sudden it gave out a screaming siren of a beep that went on and on and on... Ford jumped, shook it again, hit it on his knee, then hit it on Arthur's knee, all to no avail; the dreadful wail continued. He almost shoved it into his soggy blazer to muffle it, before realising that that would definitely not do it any good.

Arthur had hastily unwound himself from Ford and slapped his hands over his ears,

'Make it stop!' he yelled at Ford, his eyes screwed up as if that would, in some way, help to block his aural passages. Ford looked at him rather frantically, then seemed to have a brainwave,

'I'll take out the battery,' he said. Arthur nodded encouragingly, then thinking about it, wondered what sort of battery a galactic hitchhiker's thumb took. After all, in their recent travels, he had not seen many market stalls selling 'Twenty-five AA batteries for a pound', or even a shop selling exactly the same batteries in fancier packaging, and possibly less run-down, at 'Two-for-three-ninety-nine'. Perhaps it was rechargeable, but even so, Arthur had seen the contents of Ford's satchel spread out over the floor on a number of occasions, and at no time had he seen anything that looked like a recharging cable, or even an electronic-thumb docking-station. Besides, for such a device you would need a mains power supply; was the mains voltage consistent across the galactic disc? Would an electrical appliance purchased on Bethselamin work just as well on Magrathea? Or would you have to remember to buy one of those handy little adaptor plugs at the same time? If you did, how many extra attachments would there be? Were there planets using two-, three-, four- _and_ five-pin plugs? Were there different standard voltages in use within the different pin-ratings? How would you know, when you arrived on a new planet, which one to use? How did you wire a five-pin plug? Did spaceships run on a different system with their own supply? Did you need the astronautical equivalent of a lighter-socket adaptor in order to charge up your thumb when travelling? Was there a list in the _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_?

Ford was still struggling with the thumb as Arthur worked his way through these disturbingly knotty thoughts. It had a sliding panel on the bottom, with little ridges that were supposed to give you purchase on it when you wanted to open it. Instead, the ridges seemed to be doing their best to slice Ford's fingers open. He waved it at Arthur, who squinted uncomfortably at it and shook his head. Ford waved it more insistently and Arthur reluctantly took his hands away from his ears.

His face seemed to go into spasm as the full volume hit him. He realised that the mattress had stopped moving and had curled its ends under itself, presumably protecting whatever receptors it used for hearing. He put his thumbs on the little plastic cover, gripping the body of the thing with his fingers, and pushed as hard as he could. The cover gave and he grinned with delight, then collapsed back into a frown; the cover had moved one single millimetre in a move of malevolent hope-raising and dashing. He pushed again and it remained stubbornly immovable. He poured all his strength into his thumbs, his face contorting, his breathing halted by the effort.

'With a great releasing 'Gah!' of pent up exertion, he gave up. The cover would not move. They would have to wait in the ear-drum splitting noise until the battery ran out.

As he passed it back to Ford with an irritable shake of his head, he ran his own painful, corrugated thumb lightly across the cover. It slid easily off and fell onto his leg. The battery followed it, bright green and unfamiliar, and the screaming alarm ceased.

Waves of silence seemed to roll back at them across the moorland, crashing into the bells ringing in their ears as they looked down with unreadable expressions at the offending piece of black plastic sitting so innocently on Arthur's thigh. Ford hastily picked up the battery and blew at it to get the moisture off it.

'How long does a battery like that last?' asked Arthur,

'What?' asked Ford, rather more loudly.

'I said, how long,' repeated Arthur, speaking rather more loudly to try to overcome the crazed campanologists who apparently had a bigger belfry to play with in Ford's head, 'Does a battery like that last?'

'Oh,' bellowed Ford, 'Quite a few years. It charges itself up whenever it makes the transition to sub-ether, same as the _Guide_, so as long as I keep hitching, it shouldn't run out.'

'Oh,' said Arthur. He desperately wanted to pick Ford's brains about his myriad other electrical queries, but he suspected that now was not the moment. On the other hand, the excitement of the last couple of minutes seemed to have revived Ford from his semi-comatose state, and he was now looking, if not bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, at least passably alive and well. Underneath them, the mattress had uncurled its ends and was carrying them forwards without comment. Arthur suspected that it hadn't understood that the terrible racket was not something they had planned, and that it was probably, as a result, feeling a little hurt at not having been warned. He watched as Ford held the empty thumb up to his eye and squinted down the casing at the terminals.

'Will it work?' Ford turned his head and looked at him with one eye,

'I don't know, shall we have a go?'

'No!' shuddered Arthur. The thought of deliberately restarting the halted cacophony was hideous.

'You know, it might have worked anyway. I mean, it made all that noise, it might have been sending, but I don't suppose we can be brought up with it if the battery's out. You never know though, Arthur, someone might have spotted us. Cheer up!'

Arthur was a little irritated at being told to cheer up by someone who, only minutes before, had totally ignored the fact that he had saved his life, but on the other hand, Ford really hadn't looked very well at that point, and it would be churlish to be miserable for the sake of it: he would have to find a _reason_ to be miserable. Ford handed him the thumb and it's battery,

'Here,' he said, 'Hold these up to dry out while I see how the _Guide_ is.' Arthur took them and held the battery gingerly between his fingertips, fearing a shock from the fearsomely jagged-looking terminals. Ford picked up the _Guide_ and opened the case. A quantity of water gushed out, with a small, legless creature, apparently composed entirely of green seed-beads and raspberry jelly, which swam merrily down past the hem of Arthur's dressing gown and off the edge of the mattress, with absolutely no regard for the fact that there was no possible way it could have got inside the sealed _Guide_ case. Arthur stared after it, only to be brought back to himself by Ford letting out a satisfied 'Ha!'

'Working, is it?' said Arthur, slightly more sarcastically than he had intended, largely due to the fact that his arms were beginning to ache with holding up the thumb-parts into the breeze.

'Takes more than that to damage a decent copy of the _Guide_,' said Ford, with the air of a salesman demonstrating the undeniable worth of an indestructible novelty toilet-roll cosy, or a pair of non-stick salad-tongs. 'I'll see if I can find out where we are.'

His fingers flicked over the damp controls and Arthur shuffled closer to look over his shoulder, holding the thumb and battery out on his other side, so that he looked as if he were in the middle of some sort of Egyptian dance. The screen flashed with a network of possible answers, before settling on one it seemed to like,

_Where are we? Answer: The likelihood is that you are somewhere you have never been before. If it were the case that you had been here before, it is probable that some feature of the local landscape or layout would jog your memory. If this possibility had not yet occurred to you, take a look around. Is there a hill with a strangely shaped top, a particular pattern of constellations, a sofa with a particularly well-tailored cover that you feel sure you have seen before? If the answer to all these questions is 'no' then you are lost, and your best option is to hitch your way the hell out of there. Whatever you do, don't panic. If you have made it to wherever you are, it is fairly likely that someone else will be along shortly. If you are convinced that this is not the case, by all means, panic now (see footnote for entries on satisfactory panicking techniques). _

Ford put the _Guide_ back in its case and looked at Arthur,

'Not terrifically helpful, but it's right you know, we can't be far off the shipping lanes, it's not like we're out in the middle of nowhere like we were on Earth,' he ignored a nasty look from Arthur, 'we're bound to be picked up.' Then he had a thought,

''Hey, mattress, Zem, do you know where we are?' The mattress stopped and raised its front slightly,

'You are on top of me, flurble,' it said happily, and started to move forwards again. Ford looked at Arthur and sighed,

'Zarking Fardwarks,' he muttered under his breath.

'No, I mean, what planet, Zem.'

'What planet what?' asked the mattress.

'Never mind.' sighed Ford, unwilling to start explaining from the beginning. Then the mattress stopped of its own accord. Ford and Arthur looked up. They were in the shadow of a towering pillar of blue and white, which started about five feet off the ground, being perched precariously in one of the scrubby little trees Ford had observed during his navigation. The mattress spoke,

'We are now on dry land, and I feel instinctively that I must wait here near this tree.'

Arthur spoke uncertainly,

'There are...other mattresses in the tree...'

'What's a mattress?' asked the mattress. Arthur sighed dramatically and flopped back. However, he missed the mattress and flopped largely onto Ford, who ignored it, but held out his hand for the parts of his thumb,

'Looks like we're stopping here then. You don't mind if we stay on you, do you?' he asked the mattress. Arthur couldn't for the life of him think why he would want to stay on the wet, inquisitive, forgetful creature, but then the ground didn't look very comfortable, and he assumed that Ford had a plan of some sort.

'Not at all!' the mattress willomied happily, 'It will be the greatest pleasure of my life to give comfort to two beings having such great love for each other.' It silomed and volued and remained blissfully unaware of the awkward silence that had fallen upon its occupants. Ford handed Arthur the _Guide_ without looking at him, Arthur heaved himself upright, took it and opened the case. Next to him, Ford was inspecting the thumb once more in minute detail, prior to putting it back together. Arthur hesitated before entering the best description he could of their situation.

_What to do when you are stuck on a live mattress with Ford Prefect, next to a tree full of dead mattresses, with no food, no shelter, a dressing gown full of mud and slime, a stiff, chilly breeze, no idea where you are, and very little hope of being picked up._

_Answer: Count your blessings._

Arthur nearly put the _Guide_ down in disgust at that point, but he had always been one of those people who can't help reading the whole of the instruction manual/obvious junk mail/cereal packet, and he unwittingly read on,

_You may be tossing up the options between starving to death, freezing to death, or letting the mattress put you out of your misery, but at least you are not alone._

'Oh, that's very comforting,,' thought Arthur,

_In fact, since you are stuck with someone of whom you are so obviously very fond, you may as well take advantage of the situation and see if you can get in a little ante-mortem action. (Note: this entry is unauthorised and only available in limited edition versions of _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ it is not endorsed by the _Guide_ editors. Though they probably agree.) _

Arthur slammed the book back into its case and put it down. He wasn't going to think about that. He definitely wasn't going to think about what a strangely appealing idea that...no. He was NOT going to think about it. Not at all. Not one little bit. No...

He looked across at Ford and suppressed a groan. All of a sudden, the flat feathers of hair plastered down Ford's cheeks, coupled with the tangled mess on the top of his head where he had attempted to run his fingers through it, were desperately attractive. The look of concentration on his face was even more tempting. If he were just to reach out and touch the hair. Just rearrange it a little. That wouldn't seem strange. He had often pulled stray hairs out of the path of Ford's beer mug when they had come loose. Surely this wouldn't be so very different.

'No, Arthur,' he said firmly to himself, 'That way madness lies.' He handed the _Guide _back to Ford who waved it away: he was prodding at the inside of the thumb with a pencil, his tongue just sticking out through his slightly parted lips. Arthur put the _Guide_ down at his side and sighed. He lay back on the mattress and quickly sat up again, deciding that lying down was a bad thing...oh dear...

'Any...luck?' asked Ford slowly.

'No.' said Arthur. He didn't trust himself to say anything else and he cursed the guide inwardly for putting ideas into his head that he had firmly kept out for the last few years.

* * *

In the distance there was a sound like a distressed bee. It got louder and Ford looked up from his prodding. He shaded his eyes with his hand, then yelped, dropping the thumb and getting shakily to his feet, wobbling on the sprung surface. Arthur looked up, and Ford grabbed his arm and pulled him up,

'Arthur, it's a spaceship, come on, wave!' He started to wave furiously in the direction of a minute dot about two inches above the horizon. Arthur got the idea and swished his own arms frantically though the air, pulling against the caked mud. Ford pulled his soaking towel from around his neck and held it above his head, waving it like a flag. Stinking weed, blobs of mud and water drops flew in all directions, Arthur was suddenly plastered in a fresh coat of swamp material and he fell over backwards and lay on the mattress, gazing up as the dot got bigger and bigger, its noise getting more and more bee-like, until it was a ship about the size of an ice-cream van, which landed in front of them and raised a hatch in its side.

* * *

_Who has come to their aid? Will they rescue them, or merely insult them and leave? Why is the mattress so sure of its instinct to stay here? What, when the excitement is over, is Arthur going to do about the little problem he's trying so hard not to think about? Reviews of any sort are loved and cherished and will twist my arm to write another chapter in a horrifically busy week _XP_  
_


	6. Icecream Van

_A/N: You are all very patient people! After a few weeks of desperately writing a sentence here and there when I had time, I determinedly put on my dressing gown last night and toddled along to look at your lovely reviews, which helped no end _X-D_So thank-you very much! The resultant splurge of writing didn't get as far as I wanted it to, but that was largely Ford's fault ;-) _**  
**

**Chapter 6 – Ice-cream van**

...and inside the ship was a Mr Whippy machine, a slowly rotating rack of hot dogs, a hot plate with frying onions, a freezer full of lollies and ice-creams various in brightly coloured wrappers, and a hundred assorted boxes of crisps, rolls, pork scratchings and peanuts. There was a pause and a grunting, heaving sound from behind a curtain that divided this part of the ship from the cockpit, and then a huge and sweaty man with a curious crest on the side of his head emerged through the curtain, wearing a pristine white apron and hat and a badge bearing the message, 'Serve-U-Right'

Ford whooped and bounced on the mattress, lost his footing and collapsed back onto Arthur. The man in the ship smiled down jovially at them, wiped his sweat-beaded brow with a 'Serve-U-Right' branded napkin and watched Ford grinning back at him, trying to disentangle himself from Arthur's dressing gown cord, which had somehow wrapped itself around his upper thigh.

'Having a party, are we sir?' the man asked, watching curiously as Arthur's hand appeared between Ford's legs, fumbling to untangle the unbelievably knotted end of the cord.

'Leave it, Arthur, I'll do it,' hissed Ford through clenched teeth, before he turned his most dangerous smile back on the man with the ample food supplies, daring him to comment on their distinctly compromising position. Arthur withdrew his hand, and the man laughed. He had obviously trained at one of the better 'Mein Jovial Host' schools, which usually provide talent for the 'Local Pub' and 'Wayside Inn' establishments of the Galaxy, but which in this case had turned out a travelling salesman who could welcome all and sundry with the highest levels of geniality and bustling home-from-homeliness.

Ford finally managed to unfasten himself from Arthur's abdomen, and he got up, pulling his sodden pullover down as far as it would go, and self-consciously folding the skirts of his blazer across his upper legs. He leant his arms on the little hinged shelf that had folded down at chest-level in front of the open hatch, acquiring a blob of ketchup on his elbow as he did so, and looked the menu on the rear wall of the ship up and down. The menu bore no relation to any foodstuff to be seen on display in the ship. It did, however, suggest that a Betelgeusian fine-pie might be forthcoming, if one were to proffer three Altarian Dollars. His mouth started to water and his eyes widened

'Wow!' he said, 'Two Betelgeusian fine-pies please.'

'Right you are sir!' the man replied with a flourish (a method of speaking only possible for those who have received special training,) and he rummaged around under the counter-top, bringing out two frozen, round pies with greenish-purple crusts, individually wrapped in cellophane.

'Just like your mothers used to make,' said Mein Jovial Host, swinging his massive bulk daintily around in the impossibly small space, and contorting his back and shoulders in order to reach a position in which he could manoeuvre the two pies into a heating compartment in the corner.

'I doubt it,' said Ford, fishing in his pocket for the money, 'I lived with five of my mothers, on and off, and they were all appalling cooks.'

'Just as I say, sir,' said the man, returning to the counter, 'What else can I do you for?'

Arthur winced at the phrasing and attempted to get up. He grabbed Ford's blazer and hauled himself up on it, then leant next to Ford on the shelf. The man laughed again,

'Two peas in a pod,' he chuckled merrily. Arthur glanced at Ford and hastily uncrossed his arms so that he was leaning in a different position to Ford. Unfortunately, Ford had had the same thought at exactly the same moment, so they both ended up with their elbows on the shelf and their hands round the backs of their necks. Mein Host was chuckling again, and Arthur wished he wouldn't, but somehow he couldn't begrudge him his rights as a top-flight service-industry graduate.

'Something to drink perhaps?' asked the graduate. Arthur's eyes glazed over with hope,

'You don't,' he asked hesitantly, 'happen to have any...tea, do you?' He looked at the man with what might have been described in another genre as 'puppy-dog eyes', but which here will be labelled simply 'pathetic'. The man looked at him fondly and then glanced at Ford as he said,

'Afraid not sir. Not much call for that sort of thing.' Arthur deflated and the man gave him a sympathetic smile,

'Finding life a little hard at the moment are we sir? Never mind, things can only get better. Perhaps a light Centaurian Ale would perk you up a bit? I am licensed.' Arthur shook his head sadly,

'No thanks. I think I've had enough liquid for one day anyway.'

'A dessert then?' The man called over his shoulder as the heating compartment pinged and he twirled on the spot to retrieve the pies. He deftly flipped them out onto paper plates and paired each plate with a plastic knife and fork, cunningly wrapped in a Serve-U-Right napkin, so that not only was the brand-emblem on full display on the skinny package, but it was impossible to find the end of the napkin or how one might go about unwrapping the cutlery.

'Any sauces with that? Help yourselves,' the man continued, gesturing to the line of industrial sized squeezy-bottles in red, yellow, brown, green and purple that crouched warily in the corner of his hatch. Ford reached across Arthur for the green bottle, brushing his lower jaw with his damp sleeve. Arthur turned his head away from the rough, moist touch, then turned it back to look at his pie. He poked it with the wrapped cutlery,

'What is it, Ford?' he asked. Ford turned enthusiastic eyes on his own pie,

'A Betelgeusian fine-pie? Best thing you'll ever put in your mouth, Arthur,' he said. Arthur looked unconvinced,

'Yes, well, I've heard _that_ one before,' he said, recalling his first experience of alien food on board the Vogon ship.

The man in the ship was till trying to market his dessert range,

'I would recommend a pick from the ice-cream cabinet. How about a Mih'vee?'

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the subject of Mih'vees: _In much the same way as the Ginnantonnix has been seen to be part of racial memory as a drink for the masses, so the Mih'vee, has been enjoyed as a frozen sweet on a stick only apparently available from mobile emporia, and never to be found in any other incarnation. Like the Djinn Antonicks, the Mi'h'vy exists in many incarnations and with many different spellings, including the Antarian 'Uhmivvie' and the Capellan 'Mueif'eeyuh'. However, it is universally acknowledged that an ice-cream on a stick with a crumbly ice-lolly coating, is utterly impossible to eat without dropping sticky fruit ice everywhere, so discerning people leave well alone. For this reason, ice-cream van freezers throughout the Galaxy are well-stocked with this particular item and a hitchhiker requiring cooling refreshment and running close to the wire on his thirty Altarian Dollars, might well get one at a reduced rate if he asks nicely._

Ford checked his loose change. He had not spent any money whatsoever for a while, so felt no necessity to skimp on dessert.

'No, I'll take two of those wrapped cone things,' he said. The man leaned over the freezer,

'Mint or strawberry?'

'Er, one of each please.' Ford ran a hand through his hair, immediately wished he hadn't, and tried to wipe the hand discretely on a portion of Arthur's dressing gown that was less muddy than the rest. The man emerged from his freezer to see Ford apparently stroking Arthur's side. He grinned and winked knowingly at him. Ford snatched his hand away. Arthur didn't notice, he was still prodding at his pie.

'Come on Arthur, eat up,' said Ford, snatching up his own cutlery and breaking the purplish crust of his own pie, 'The cones will melt.'

He managed to free his cutlery from its napkin wrapper by tearing the offending paper away, then dug his fork into the orangeish interior and raised it to his mouth. He chewed and swallowed. A thoughtful look came over his face, accompanied by a bravely disguised look of disgust.

'Well, you're partly right,' he said to the white-clad owner, 'My second mother made pies just about on a par with this one.' Beside him, Arthur choked on his first mouthful, and tried to find somewhere he could discreetly spit it out. Given that the van-owner was watching his every move, he decided there was no way he could do this without offending the presumable cook of this particular delicacy. So he manfully ate his way through the rest of the pie, watching Ford out of the corner of his eye. Ford too seemed to be struggling with his pie, but he was hiding it very well, and the man in the van-ship was still beaming.

They finished their pies almost together, and Ford pointed at the cones rolling in little self-contained circles on the counter,

'Which one do you fancy?' he asked. Arthur shrugged,

'I don't mind,' he said. Ford sighed, picked up the cones, one in each hand, and thrust them behind his back.

'Okay, pick a hand,' he said. Arthur considered a moment, then leaned forward and touched Ford lightly on his left arm. As Ford brought his hands back into the open, Arthur's glance travelled up and across his face, where it got momentarily stuck at his too-blue eyes, which were staring steadily at him and ignoring the jolly ship-keeper. Arthur wrenched his gaze away, and back down to the mint cone in Ford's hand. He took it and hastily unwrapped it, relaxing a little as the first taste started to wash away the unpleasant aftermath of the pie.

'Will that be all, gents?' asked the man. Ford nodded, licking feverishly around the edges of his already-melting cone. The man started to pack up, throwing white sheets over some of the piles of boxes and equipment, strapping loose objects to the walls, and reaching out to fold up the little shelf on which Ford and Arthur still leaned. Ford swallowed hard, finishing his cone in two large mouthfuls. Arthur looked at him disapprovingly,

'You'll get indigestion,' he said, though he couldn't look as disapproving as he wanted to, because, with ice-cream now dripping out of the the soggy bottom of his cone and running down his wrist, he really couldn't argue that his was the better method. Ford's eyes twinkled at him, and Ford's mouth grinned at him, and Arthur stepped back, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling oddly, a response which was entirely contrary to the advice he was receiving from his brain, which was to step closer and throw his arms around Ford and damn the large, white-clad, laughing man and his knowing looks. What did he know anyway? The very fact that Arthur had just backed off rather than move closer was proof enough that there was no substance in what the man...and come to think of it, the mattress and the guide...and in a frighteningly subtle way, Ford, had been saying all day. No. Arthur Dent was not going to get conned into this one. Not that easily anyway.

The man reached up and started to unhook the hatch, preparatory to bringing it down. Ford leant forward,

'Can you give us a lift off here?' he asked, 'Only we crash landed and we don't have any transport.'

The man looked at him sympathetically,

'I'm afraid not, sir.'

Ford sucked his cheek in disappointment, then tried again. He smiled at the man and Arthur felt the hairs on the back of his neck go up again. The man took a step back from the hatch, so that he was pressed hard against the boxes behind him,

'You know sir, I am very glad that I just saw you eat, otherwise I'd be worried. I'm sorry, but I really can't take you. It's regulations, see? 'No unqualified catering staff on the premises,' and this here ship is the premises. I'm sorry, but rules are rules.'

Ford looked slightly downcast, then asked,

'Did you pick up a signal from my thumb?'

'What, me sir? No sir. I don't look out for hitchhikers – can't take them on board, can I? No, I was here on the rounds – just had a mattress-drop, haven't they, so there'll be traders coming in to pick them up. I guess they haven't arrived yet. I'll be back tomorrow to try to catch them then. I make good sales to the mattress fraternity. Every last one of them is kinky for a mini-milk.' He winked at them, 'Don't worry gents, there'll be a whole lot of ships coming through and they'll have to land to pick up their cargo, so provided you stay near these mattresses, you'll be able to flag one of them down. Here,' he reached under the sheets and pulled out two packets of sandwiches bearing the legend, 'May contain sandwiches' on the front, and two packets of crisps, which he tossed at them as he fumbled for the hatch fasteners again,

'Have those on the house; keep you going,' he said, and winked at them again. He brought down the hatch as Arthur called,

'Thank-you very much.'

They were still standing there, clutching their crisps and sandwiches, when the ship hummed and lifted off the ground. The blast of the engines knocked them off their feet, and they fell onto the mattress, Ford landing on top of Arthur, his sandwiches and crisps settling on Arthur's collar-bone like a necklace. His face was desperately close to Arthur's, and he hovered there for a second while panic and hope fought for supremacy in Arthur's eyes. It was a long battle and took up both their concentrations, so that they didn't notice the change in the ice-cream ship's engine noise, and the fact that it had come down to hover a couple of feet above the ground. The driver's-side window-hatch hissed open, and the jovial man's arm appeared, leaning on it. He poked his head out of the window and called down at them,

'Oh, just kiss him, for pity's sake.' The hatch closed, the ship whooshed away, and Arthur and Ford were left quivering on the mattress, still only inches from each other's faces, clutching their edibles protectively between them, as if that increased the distance. Arthur's mouth worked itself round various consonant-options, with little input from his brain. Ford seemed to take the plunge and leant in slightly, then he lost all confidence and rolled off Arthur, his fingertips accidentally brushing across his neck as he collected his crisps. Arthur shuddered and fumbled for some way to break the silence. His efforts were unnecessary however, as the mattress spoke first, sounding rather muffled under the pair of them,

'Why, flurble, do you not listen to the man's advice?' it asked. Ford shot a look at Arthur, who was steadily not looking at him, but who hadn't moved his shoulder away from where it cozied up to Ford's,

'I didn't hear him say anything. Did you Arthur?' he asked. There was a pause, and Arthur started to plait the ends of his dressing gown cord where they were unravelling,

'No-oo,' he said at last, but not in an entirely convincing tone of voice.

'Can I take a look at the _Guide_?' he asked, as levelly as he could with his stomach doing flip-flops and his brain telling him firmly to get up and leap on Ford while there was still the faintest chance.

'He did!' said the mattress. Ford froze; why could the creature not forget this like it did everything else? 'He said, 'Just k...'' The mattress shut up as Ford growled at it,

'Shut up!' in a low and dangerous voice that made it feel like the man lying on it had all its springs bunched in his hand and was twisting them round and round.

Ford pulled out the _Guide_ and handed it to Arthur, then, while Arthur started to input his query, shuffled himself up a little, so that he could read over Arthur's shoulder without him noticing. He was very curious as to what Arthur was going to ask the guide.

The _Guide_ chirped and Ford read:

_How to wire a five-pin plug._

* * *

_Will the predicted influx of mattress traders actually materialise? Will they show any interest in a still-live mattress? Will they rescue Ford and Arthur? and will they all be just as determined that Ford and Arthur ought to just get on and do something about themselves? Reviews always welcome (even, or especially, incoherent squees ;-))When I get back from holiday next week, hopefully I'll get out another chapter that might get us there at last! (maybe!)_


	7. Five Pin Plug

**Chapter 7 – Five Pin Plug**

Ford lay back, sulking a little. He had rather hoped that Arthur would be furtively looking up something related to their current little problem, i.e. what to do about each other and the fact that everyone else was drawing what Ford had to admit were probably correct conclusions about them. He picked up the thumb that was lying next to him on the mattress, still in pieces. He blew down the empty tube once more for luck, then carefully slipped the battery back into the case, poised and ready to slap his hands back over his ears if the appalling wailing recommenced. It didn't, and he slid the cover thankfully back into place and pressed the maintenance button. The thumb blooped dully and let out a low hum,

'Service lines are out of order,' he said to Arthur, who grunted disinterestedly, studying the diagram currently gracing the screen of the _Guide_ with more absorption than Ford thought was strictly necessary.

'Green to the terminal nearest to the wire entry point on the left. Purple through the channel next to it...'

'Arthur,' said Ford warningly,

'Blue to the bottom terminal on the right, but not before you've pulled the red and the yellow through the channel that runs underneath it. The purple to the...'

'Arthur, stop it,' said Ford, shivering. The sun was starting to go down and the stars were appearing in the sky, seeming to make the wind stronger and colder, and giving Ford an itchy tingle in his hitchhiker's nerves. He wanted to be on the move, and the prospect of a night spent with an Arthur Dent who not only refused to speak to him, but who was also determined to read him the _Hitchhiker's Guide to How to do Just About Anything_ was not appealing. Especially if he was going to be cold as well.

'...Top left terminal, the red through the groove in the yellow to the right top terminal, then connect the yellow.'

Ford sighed dramatically and tried to pull the book out of Arthur's hands. Arthur gripped so tightly that his knuckles turned a yellowish white in the diminishing light, and his eyes never moved from the screen.

'Swing the cable grip over the top of the first fuse bank, taking care not to snag it in the yellow cable, which will still be slightly loose until the cable grip has been secured. Make sure the red pin is well bedded and is in contact with the end of the second fuse bank before tightening the cable grip. Holding the cable in one hand, using the thumb to hold the grip in place, and gripping the pins securely in their sockets with the other hand, tighten the screws in the grip evenly on both sides by using two screwdrivers at once, or a ScrewPro Double-Headed Driver ®.

'I've run out of hands,' said Arthur mournfully, and for the first time since the awkward moment had been averted, looked at Ford.

Ford was shivering hard and looking fairly peeved. His hair had now dried in the breeze, but large clumps of it were still stuck with gungey black mud to the sides of his face. Arthur supposed that he himself probably didn't look all that much better, but short hair works better with the whole mud look, and at least he probably didn't have that faint bluish tinge of cold about his lips.

Ah. Yes. Probably worth doing something about that actually. Ford had wrapped his towel about his shoulders, but frankly, in its present, mud-crackly condition, its powers of insulation were demonstrably severely diminished. The fact that Arthur was not suffering similarly had largely to do with the fact that, unlike a towel, his dressing gown had been made out of wool, which was designed to keep sheep, even muddy sheep, nice and warm in the middle of highland winters. It, therefore, retained its powers of heat-preservation under these extreme conditions and was large enough to wrap him warmly and leave plenty over for air-spaces and other things that he had been taught were good for keeping warm. Or indeed, for wrapping up a friend who is suffering from inadequate towelage on an alien planet where towel-shops are few and far between. Arthur's own towel, stuffed in his dressing gown pocket, was probably in an even worse state than Ford's, not having had the benefit of being waved vigorously in the air as a signal to passing ice-cream vans, so any thought of offering that as an alternative was useless. There was nothing else for it, he would have to offer Ford a space in his gown, and that would mean being very close to Ford and that was a situation which would require a lot of will-power to control. Ford was stuffing his thumb back into his satchel, and looking at Arthur in a hurt sort of way out of the corner of his eye. Arthur cleared his throat and tried to find a satisfactory way to phrase his suggestion, without it sounding too suggestive. The longer he thought, the less suitable any of the possibilities sounded, and the more irritable Ford appeared to become. In fact, if he carried on like this, thought Arthur, Ford would be in such a bad mood, he wouldn't have to worry about this leading anywhere...inappropriate. Nevertheless, looking at the state of his companion, Arthur felt it would be mean in the extreme to hold out just in order to create this eventuality. Having dismissed 'Would you like to get inside my dressing gown?' and 'You look cold, come and snuggle up to me,' as being on the wrong side of mis-interpretable, he eventually settled for,

'You're shivering, get in here.'

Actually, it probably lacked the finesse he would have liked, but perhaps that was just as well. Ford gave him a look that said 'About time, too,' and shuffled closer. Arthur held his gown open and held himself in a reserved huddle of which a Victorian British Gentleman stuck in a crowded railway carriage would have been proud. Ford tucked himself in under Arthur's right arm and hauled the dressing gown front over him. Arthur hung in suspense for a couple of moments, uncertain what to do with his right arm, but then he realised that it was pointless attempting to keep it in the air all night, and brought it down to rest on Ford's side. Ford shivered against him, and Arthur's natural instinct made him hold him tighter, trying to stop the vibrations by sheer force.

'Arthur,' said Ford at last, when his teeth had stopped chattering enough for him to get coherent words out, 'You are going to start talking to me again soon, aren't you.' He sounded matter-of-fact rather than querulous. Arthur tilted his head to look down at Ford, whose head was resting on his shoulder in a very familiar way. In fact, Ford's head had physically rested on his shoulder like this on a number of occasions in the past, notably when Ford had been fairly drunk and Arthur had also been in a great enough state of inebriation not to care what Ford did, but it had never had the overtones that it seemed to have acquired tonight. The sun had now gone down completely and they were lying in the pale light of the stars and an obliging moon which was climbing steadily up from behind a hill, shedding more and more silvery light onto their faces.

Arthur grunted.

'Holy Zarquon!' said Ford in frustration, and turned away from Arthur, pulling the gown more tightly over his shoulder as he rolled into it. It didn't reach over his back where it pulled away from the left-hand front of the gown, and Arthur could almost see the cold start to seep into Ford's back. He grasped the left front panel in his hand and tucked it over them both, covering the gap. Ford shuffled a little, but didn't say anything. Arthur bit his cheek pensively. He couldn't spend the whole night like this. For one thing, having Ford turned on his side like this was cutting off the circulation in his arm, and for another...well, it was a little lonely. In fact, though he didn't want to think about it, given that they were all alone, in the semi-darkness, on an alien and therefore potentially dangerous planet, with a live mattress whiffling slightly under them, a hug might be nice.

'Sorry, Ford,' he whispered. Ford twitched, then rolled over and it seemed as if his blue eyes shone their colour through the greys and blacks of everything else,

'Zarking uncomfortable like that anyway,' he said with a slight grin that made the warning hairs on the back of Arthur's neck ready themselves for action. Arthur felt a slight lump grow in the back of his throat. Instinctive little impulses were firing off all over his brain and down his spine. In his head, over and over again, all he could hear was 'just kiss him, just kiss him...'

Ford untangled his arm and laid it across Arthur's chest,

'You don't mind, do you?' he asked, and Arthur shook his head, not really sure what he was agreeing with. Ford was fiddling with Arthur's collar, which seemed a strange thing to do unless he meant something by it. Arthur wondered whether he wanted Ford to mean something by it or not. It seemed that Ford didn't know either, because after a minute or two, he stopped fiddling and seemed to be scratching round for something to say, when he could have just gone to sleep.

Ford's face turned up towards Arthur's, and for a long time they were trapped, staring into each other's eyes, and something had to give. Ford took an uneven breath,

''Night Arthur,' he said. Arthur blinked and Ford's gaze was gone, his head was lying on his chest, and his eyes were closed. He couldn't bear it. Nothing was going to get him to sleep in this state and he had a feeling that Ford wasn't going to find it that easy either.

'Ford?' he asked quietly,

'What?' said Ford, without opening his eyes,

'I just wondered...um...' he stopped. He couldn't think of a single thing he needed to ask Ford. His brain scuttled off to hide in an embarrassed huddle in the corner of his skull while he cursed it for being so uninventive. Luckily, the unfinished question was enough to attract Ford's attention. He opened his eyes and twisted his head to look up at Arthur again. The look on Arthur's face made him raise his head and push himself back to get him more in focus. It was the expression of a man who desperately wants to take some action, but whose brain, and will, have gone into hiding. Ford looked confusedly at him,

'Arthur? Are you alright?' he asked. Arthur's mouth dropped open vacantly. Ford smirked and lifted his hand to Arthur's chin to push his mouth shut. The hand stayed on Arthur's chin. It refused to be taken away. It guided Arthur's chin closer to Ford. He felt his head move forward and his lips push out and touch Arthur's and lay the gentlest of kisses on his mouth. Then his brain regained control and he let go and laid his head back down on Arthur's chest, doing his best to pretend that nothing had happened.

Arthur lay rigid, with his eyes wide open and his mouth returned to its bemused-cod gape. There had to be something you did at moments like this. He was sure of it. He had read it in books...not quite like this of course...most of the books Arthur read, when they touched on the subject at all, involved a man and a woman. And it was usually the man who did the unexpected, or at least unannounced, kissing, and Arthur didn't want to be classed as a woman. And the man usually spoke to the woman afterwards – at least, he did not lay his head down upon her ample bosom and start to make sounds like he was going straight off to sleep. He jolly well followed it up with a little light caressing, some sweet-talking into her ear. Just a bit of gazing into each other's eyes would have been better than nothi...

Arthur gasped lightly to himself and squeezed his eyes shut again. He hadn't meant that. He _definitely_ hadn't meant that. And neither, it appeared, had Ford, since he was still making little preparatory grunting noises into Arthur's chest. Arthur flicked his eyes open and looked down at the silver-black shadow of Ford's head. He was going to sleep. He was actually going to sleep. He had kissed Arthur, and now he was going to sleep. Well ,dash it all, Arthur was not going to stand for that. A peeved sort of emotion was taking hold of his brain. It wasn't the fact of the kiss, which, let's face it, had been sort-of in the air for a while now, however much he had tried to ignore it. It was the fact that Ford had done it and was now letting them slip back to square one, if not worse.

'Well,' thought Arthur, 'I'm not having it.'

He pulled his left hand out of his dressing gown pocket and poked Ford hard in the shoulder. Ford gave a pained grunting sound and buried his head further into Arthur's chest. Arthur poked him again,

'Ow!' said Ford, 'Stop poking me!' Arthur let a little premonition stumble briefly across his mind before he spoke,

'Ford. I refuse to let you do that to me and then just go off to sleep.'

His brain ran out of words at the same moment that it realised he had been speaking coherently without its permission. Ford opened one eye and looked warily up at him,

'Do what?' he asked menacingly. Arthur wasn't quite certain what the menace was for, but suspected it had something to do with embarrassment. Everything he could think of doing certainly did. He thought of all the things he could say, all the things he could do. In the stories, the party occupying Arthur's position would let out a tirade of righteous anger at his treatment. They would sit up, expelling the other party from the warmth of their dressing gown and refuse to help them any more until an apology had been forthcoming. Or, alternatively, and depending very much on the sort of book it happened to be, they would grab said other party on each side of their face, and ravage them with two pages worth of steamy kissing and perhaps (if the book had a pink or pale blue cover with a soft-focus photo of a sickly sweet couple on the front,) more.

Arthur felt, not for the first time, that his brain was chickening out on him.

'Nothing,' he said, and looked down hopelessly at Ford. Ford's expression softened, and he said, with a little less enthusiasm and barely a hint of the previous menace, but perhaps a little hopefulness,

'Are you sure?' Arthur looked at him oddly. Was he sure, what? No, he wasn't sure. He was on a live mattress on an alien planet with no possessions in the world but a couple of sandwiches, a towel, and the clothes he stood in, and his best friend had just kissed him. Certainty was out of the window...if there had been a window...which there wasn't.

His confusion seemed to trigger something in Ford, who looked at him with what the pink covered book would almost certainly describe as 'a hungry expression, full of lust and latent passion', but which Arthur found, frankly, terrifying. Ford's eyes burned into him and the warning hairs that had been standing at the ready for some time now, hauled themselves to attention as he prepared to be eaten (and not at all in the way the pink covered book might have it). Ford was edging closer, very much as if he couldn't actually help it, and the result was electrifying. Arthur whimpered and felt his eyes start to close, and damned the heroine of the cheap pink book for choosing him as her avatar.

When Ford's lips touched his once more, however, it was different. He was not the heroine; he was the dashing hero with slick, glossy brylcreem hair and a smile that really gave off starlight twinkles when he smiled. He wrapped his arms tightly around Ford and allowed himself to kiss him back. Ford swung his leg over Arthur's, lying on his chest and grasping madly at his hair, ignoring the clumps of mud he dislodged in the process. Under them, the mattress giggled happily and curled up its edges to stop them rolling off, and the most almighty racket of throbbing engines and displaced air swept over them and they broke apart, breathing rather heavily.

'Zark it,' said Ford, wiping his mouth. The he looked down at Arthur, his expression unreadable,

'Towel, Arthur. Time to hitch a ride.'

Arthur felt like his favourite toy had just been confiscated by an adult who had every right so to do and with whom he could not, therefore, reasonably be angry. He sighed as Ford heaved himself off him and stood, towel poised, wobbling on the mattress. He held out a hand to Arthur, who used it to pull himself up. Arthur pulled his own towel out of his pocket and gingerly unfurled it. It dropped a heap of slime onto the ground in front of them, and lay dripping limply in his hand.

On the horizon, dark shapes lost behind bright headlights were swarming over the horizon. They fanned out across the landscape and slowed, scanning the ground in a well practised pattern. Three of them were heading straight for where Ford and Arthur stood on their towel island.

'Wave your towel!' shouted Ford over the increasing engine noise. He started to wave his own wildly about. It had lost all its projectile mud in its first use, but Arthur's was a virgin flag and sprayed a liberal coating of mud and slime across them and the mattress. The middle ship flew straight towards them, coming in low over their heads, and they were dazzled by its bright searchlight. Ford grabbed Arthur around the waist and pulled him down just as the ship blasted its engines one, sending a shock-wave that would have knocked them over. He grabbed his satchel and started towards the ship, pulling Arthur up by his right hand and dragging him after him.

Arthur stumbled up and grasped the hand as tightly as he could. So when the hatch in the side of the ship opened, the being inside was confronted with the apparently fascinating spectacle of two humanoids, covered in dryish mud and slime, with only one satchel between them and a towel each, held in the hands that were not clutching each other as if the universe would end if they let go.

* * *

What kind of being has come to Ford and Arthur's rescue, or disturbed what could have been the pinnacle of slushy/slashy pink-covered book romantic liaisons? Have they come to collect mattresses or are they are sinister group of galactic Hell's Angels out on a jolly? Will Ford and Arthur get a lift, and will it have a private room where they can put the interruption aside?

Thanks for the lovely reviews. I'm working away for a few weeks now, but I'll do my best to update soon when I get back :-D


	8. Tea?

_A/N: I feel a cad and a bounder, promising chapters, then abandoning everything for two months. Still, my reasons were good, and your reviews were lovely, so thank-you :) Here is the result of me beating myself about the head with my towel, having looked at my last update date and seen how naughty it was. I beg your indulgence for a very busy girl! (Oh to be back at college, where the Christmas holidays really existed and were not merely a figment of my overactive imagination...) (Links to Ford Prefect's Culinary entries in the _Guide_ for anyone who actually likes the sound of the later content of this chappy!)_**  
**

**Chapter 8 – Tea?**

The being flicked out a tongue in the way that a snake would, if a snake had a tongue that was almost as wide as its head and correspondingly thick. Arthur recoiled slightly, suppressing a sound of distaste and earning a warning squeeze of the hand from Ford. This alerted him to the fact that his hand was being held, and he reluctantly attempted to disengage it. It didn't work. Ford's grip was strong and determined. The being spoke. Coming through the Babel fish it sounded chittery, like a praying mantis trying to get served at an all-night eatery. Arthur wasn't sure why this was the first analogy that sprung to mind, but he thought it might have something to do with the kind of day he'd had. His mental analogising had blocked out much of the sense of the first couple of sentences offered by the being, so the first words he really caught of the conversation were Ford's,

'...particular mattress saved my life, and Arthur's come to that. I just don't feel comfortable with that idea.' Arthur started to pay better attention. Oh, so that mattress had saved Ford's life had it? What about his own contribution? With the way the trend seemed to be going, it looked like his life-saving role was going to be glossed over historically. He made another attempt to free his hand, a little more vigorous this time, but Ford just squeezed harder and shot him a glance that said 'What?'.

'Okay, enough already,' said the being. Arthur jumped and looked at it quizzically. It did not have the correct accent to use the phrase 'enough already'. He decided to put it down to a phraseologically incorrect translation on the part of the Babel fish. The being continued,

'Live mattresses I don't got the room for. Dead ones, sure. So the mattress dies or it don't come.' Ford frowned,

'What's the problem? It doesn't take up any more space than a dead one, surely?' The being considered for a moment,

'Sure it don't, when it keeps itself still. But what happens when it gets it into its head to go for a walk huh? I get a ship full of swamp water is what, and a blocked emergency exit route such as I can get myself fined for. What for you want I should get a hefty fine, huh?' Arthur struggled inwardly with the chasm of difference of interpretation between the vaguely middle-British accent and the choice of phrase, then shook himself and said,

'If the mattress promises to keep still, will you let it come?' He wasn't sure why he was sticking up for the mattress, or why he had decided he wanted it to come at all. He presumed that Ford had already, in the few seconds he had missed, acquired an agreement that they could hitch with this peculiar gentleman, but it seemed strange that he felt a burning desire for the mattress to come with them, to the extent that he might be unwilling to go without it, and would put himself between it and the slaughter if need be. Something in his brain suspected foul play, or at least devious play on the part of somebody or something, but he dismissed it and looked meaningfully at the being, who looked back with an expression that was the embodiment of a firm 'no',

'I assume you do actually have room for us?' The being pulled itself back so that it was upright on what Arthur could now see was a rather squelchy and shapeless sack of an abdomen. It appeared, from the up-and-down way in which it rocked from side to side, that there were some sort of feet under there, but they were concealed by the overhanging flesh and played no part in the being's appearance.

'You, I got room for,' said the being, 'So long as it makes you happy to sit on a mattress, I got room.'

He wiggled eyebrows that would have made Zaphod proud, and gestured into his hold,

'So, you coming in?'

'Not without the mattress,' said Ford and Arthur together. They glanced at each other in slight alarm and quickly looked back at the being, which shook its head. Arthur felt the old anti-bureaucratic frenzy begin to build in him and let a little of it bubble to the surface in the form of a well-reasoned argument,

'If we are happy to sit on a mattress and are only happy to sit on a mattress that keeps still, yet are perfectly happy to sit on that live mattress over there, then we are your guarantee, are we not, that said mattress will keep still during the trip. If the mattress moves, we will be thrown off, so it is in our interests to keep it still. Since one or other of your mattresses has to be sat on by us, it may as well be one that isn't saleable. Am I right?'

The being thought for a moment, then nodded slowly,

'Me they call stubborn...' it said, 'Okay, so bring on the mattress, but if I get trouble, it's you I'm blaming. Deal?'

'Deal,' said Ford, let go of Arthur's hand and started over towards the mattress. Arthur hurried after him, hissing in his ear,

'For pity's sake, let go of my hand when we're talking to a stranger. What will he think?'

Ford looked at him and slowed, and his eyes glittered at Arthur and made his stomach reconsider its location in his body a couple of times. He looked back at the being still standing, hands on what Arthur presumed were its hips, in the hatchway of its spaceship, Ford shrugged and reached down to the mattress,

'Do you seriously think the whole Galaxy shares your little rules and prejudices Arthur?' Arthur stepped back, offended,

'Firstly, they are not petty little rules, they are ways to survive in the society from which I come, a society which may be extinct, but which, for some strange reason, which may just be connected with the fact that I lived in it for my entire life until you came and dragged me away, still bears rather heavily on my thinking.' Arthur's blood was rising now, Ford spotted the danger signs and relaxed: secretly he rather liked Arthur in a tizzy. Arthur continued, 'Secondly, I do not know what the rest of the Galaxy thinks, but I do not intend to find out the hard way. And you can stop smiling, you're making my neck itch.' Ford grinned more broadly and Arthur turned away, rather too theatrically to have the desired effect. His dressing gown, still heavy with mud, swished around his knees in slow motion, battering him several seconds after he was expecting it and nearly throwing him off balance. He huffed his shoulders to indicate that this misfortune made not the slightest difference, and only turned around again when he heard the sound of a damp mattress being encouraged by Ford to loop its way semi-floopily to the open hatchway.

The being retreated into its cabin and watched the mattress wendle past, its corners rising and twisting as it moved as if it were taking a look at its new surroundings, which it probably was. It spoke,

'Hello? Voom,' it said cheerily, 'What's your name?'

The being narrowed its eyes,

'So what's it to you?'

'Hello Sowatsitooyou, are you happy? Flurble?' It blew a couple of hopeful bubbles.

The being looked back, confused,

'Am I happy? it asks me. Sure, I'm happy, or I'm not happy. Who cares? But my name, that's not. You can call me Kelp.'

'Kelp!' repeated the mattress, 'I'm Zem!' It blew another bubble, and flolloped gently over to a space in the corner. Ford watched it go,

'So, where are you from Kelp?' Kelp waddled forwards a little and leant against the hatchway,

'From Lorigen. What's it to you?' His tone was not unfriendly, so Ford continued,

'How long have you been freighting?'

'Eighty...three years. Before, I was a locksmith, but the need it isn't there now. Not since the new laws came in.' Ford frowned,

'What new laws? I never read about those...' He started to fish for the _Guide, _but Kelp turned away,

'Enough with the questions, I got cargo to load.' He pulled down a little control box, attached to a curly cable of the type seen across the galaxy, and cursed as the end popped loose from the box,

'Zarquon's trousers, I got to get a new control pad. You know what this cost me? Eight hundred. And the whole payment was supposed to be in Ningis, I ask you. So I get myself a lawyer and I tell him I want to pay in real money. So he wins my case, but still I'm paying his fees.' He pushed the cable back into the box and stabbed at the buttons. A second hatch in the side of the ship opened, revealing the true loading bay doors. A machine bearing slight resemblance to a fork-lift truck, but on a massive scale, trundled out and rolled across to the tree. Kelp wiggled at a small joystick on his control box, and the fork-lift raised itself to the height of the lowest mattress in the tree and slid under it. Kelp made it jerk wildly a couple of times, and the mattresses fell lightly and with no apparent snagging on the branches, onto the fork. He pushed another button and the vehicle reversed, did a neat little turn and headed back towards the cargo bay. Clearly, Kelp had been doing this for far too long.

The loaded fork-lift juddered up the little ramp, deposited its load in a corner, and returned to its resting position by the hatch. Kelp put the control pad back in its wall-mounted holster, which had an extremely scuffed sticker in the middle of the front bar, which someone had tried to scrape off at some point with limited success. It read 'I love Luigi's deep fried bee...' although, Arthur thought, the bee was probably something else in its distant past, particularly as the faded picture in the middle looked less like a furry breaker of the laws of aerodynamics, and more like a lump of reconstituted, thoroughly grounded ruminant. Kelp broke his train of though by shifting his weight slightly, allowing himself to break wind with a magnificent tremolo caused by the folds of skin washing around wherever he kept that particular sphincter, and waddling off to the cockpit, waving a hand back at them,

'Sit, eat, there's plenty in the locker by your mattress. Now I have six more pick-ups to do before those other sons of Zarquon's second evil son get their thieving fingers on the lot, so keep you still and quiet and I leave you to it, okay?' Ford and Arthur nodded and went across to the mattress, which had settled itself down in a corner and was slowly oozing a little puddle of swamp water across the floor.

'Hello Zem,' said Ford as he and Arthur sat down with a relieved sigh on it.

'Hello!' cried the mattress joyfully, 'Who are you?'

'Never mind,' said Ford, throwing a despairing look at Arthur, which Arthur in a valiant attempt to hold onto his mood and his dignity, tried to avoid catching,

'Oh come on Arthur,' said Ford with a hint of irritation in his voice, 'We're here for a while, lets make it fun shall we?' Arthur looked at him in horror,

'Ford, if you think I am doing anything...' he searched desperately for an adjective and failed to come up with one, 'Anything,' he repeated more firmly, 'While that...gentleman is just on the other side of that hatch, you are very much mistaken. Ford gazed at him with an expression that ran the gamut from disappointment to resignation, stopping briefly at disbelief, sympathy, determination and wild exultation (though that last one was probably a glitch). Eventually he shrugged,

'In that case, I'm starving. Left our zarking sandwiches behind, didn't we? Be a hoopy frood Arthur, and look in that locker, see what we can eat.' Arthur looked as if he was about to protest, then he reflected that this would at least get him momentarily off the mattress and give them both something to do. He hauled himself to his feet and yanked at the locker door. It opened with a suddenness that took him completely by surprise, and he fell back, landing on Ford once again. Ford pushed him back up to standing,

'Look, Arthur, if you're not going to follow it up at all, could you please stop falling on me? It's not helping.'

Arthur ignored him. In the locker there was half of what looked like a banana; a salt cellar; an open bag of chilli roasted peanuts; a mixer-sized bottle of tonic water, most of a triple-layer Victoria sponge with cream and jam...

'Well, it's hardly what I'd call plenty...' muttered Arthur sarcastically,

...A packet of individually shrink-wrapped kippers; what looked like a life-threatening chutney in a fouly encrusted jar marked 'Strawberry, August' (though it quite clearly wasn't); The two crusts of some cheap white sliced bread in their original bag; eight medium eggs; a pot of ancient mayonnaise; and a bar of chocolate, 86 cocoa.

'This could be a somewhat unorthodox meal,' observed Arthur. He pulled out the box of kippers and gave a very unmanly little yelp, which he tried, unsuccessfully, to turn into a hearty cough.

'What is it?' asked Ford, with a commendable amount of concern in his voice. Arthur reached into the depths of the locker. Right at the back, previously hidden by the smoked mortal remains of what he had previously considered to be exclusively Earth-originating fish, was a small, brightly painted, tin jar with a rounded, snugly fitting lid; in other words, a caddy. On the side, around a regal-looking crest, it read 'Jacksons of Piccadilly...TEA.'

Arthur's fingers closed around it reverentially and he brought it out with shaking hands. His knees started to give way, so he leant against the locker and gazed at the caddy lovingly,

'Ford, it's tea...' he sighed, and Ford shuffled forwards to take a look,

'Arthur,' he said warningly, 'Think about it. Why would this low-life mattress-trader have a tin full of tea on his ship?' Arthur turned on him,

'Why would he have half a banana? Why would he have a Victoria sponge cake just like my mother used to make? Why, for that matter, would he have a jar marked August, when what I've seen of the rest of the galaxy doesn't believe very much in calendar months?' Ford raised his hands in submission,

'I don't know, Arthur, I'm just advising you not to get your hopes up.'

But Arthur knew there was tea in there. He could feel it calling to him like an old friend through the window of a hotel saloon bar. It rustled on the edge of his hearing and his nose started to invent the smell for him. His limbs relaxed, which, given their already shaky condition was, perhaps, a bad thing. He sagged to the floor, cradling the little tin in his arms. The puddle of swamp water started to seep up through his dressing gown. He wrapped one hand round the body of the tin and placed his other hand on top, feeling the roundness of the lid seat itself snugly into his palm. He increased the pressure on his fingertips and pulled, giving it a professional little half-twist to encourage it. It slid with the resistance of a decent tea-preserving vacuum, up the neck of the tin. It stopped at the top. Arthur had stopped it. He led it ease up on one side, just a crack, just enough to put his nose to, to inhale deeply, and to declare, eyes shining at Ford,

'It_smells_ of tea.'

Ford's frown deepened. He knew there could not be tea. There was no tea. In all his years of hitching there had never been tea. True, he had never really been on the look out for it before his sojourn on Earth, not like now, when he kept his eyes peeled for it in the same way you might hunt the gift shops of the world for high-quality novelty silver spoons depicting the Lorelei, the Statue of Liberty or the Highest Change-Dispensing Machine in the World, for a collecting maiden aunt. But he would have remembered by now if he had ever come across tea. Although he hardly ever mentioned it to Arthur, especially since it produced extended gloominess and reminiscing, he did spend a lot of the time thinking about tea. How he could get some. How Arthur's face would light up if he found some. How he would...

But this was not going to be one of those occasions. It was obvious.

Then again, there was the caddy. And it _did_ say 'Jacksons of Piccadilly' on it. Now how, in the name of Zarking Fardwarks, did that come to be on this crummy little freighter? Given that the caddy was here, was it not just remotely possible that some of its original contents remained? Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Arthur's lunatic optimism was actually and unbelievably well-founded. He put a hand on Arthur's shoulder. Arthur looked round at the touch and looked at Ford questioningly.

'Go on,' said Ford softly, 'Open it.'

He desperately wanted there to be tea. He wanted to witness that inevitable and overwhelming joy due to a handful of greenish-black flakes of desiccated vegetation. More importantly, he wanted to help Arthur release some of his exuberance when the first flush of excitement had passed.

Arthur tipped back the lid and peered inside.

A low hum of misery escaped him and he leant back slightly onto Ford's comforting hand. Ford stretched out his other hand and tilted the tin towards the light. The walls of the tin were silvery, dusted with black powder here and there. At the bottom was a blackness, but it was not the crisp autumn-leaf crackling of fresh tea. It was the powder of a lost batch. The ashy remains of tea that might have been, and rolling slowly around in it, cushioned by the powder, was a single green marble.

Ford decided that the only way to play this was upbeat. He squeezed Arthur's shoulder,

'Well, you were nearly right. Hey...you know what? That's still tea, isn't it? I mean, it does smell like tea? Maybe we can get something out of it after all? I mean, if slug-man there has anything in the way of a kettle and a bit of water...' He tailed off, Arthur was shaking his head.

'No Ford, a good cup of tea is elusive enough when you're making it with the good stuff. You can't expect that dust in there to taste of anything. It just doesn't. It looks like the contents of the last stale tea bag at the end of the unsealed box of shop's own brand. It just...smells right. That's all.' Ford sighed again and took the caddy from Arthur,

'So what else was in there?' he asked, though he knew the list. He dearly wanted to take Arthur's mind off the tea. He knew immediately, however, that it wasn't going to work. Arthur sat himself back on the mattress, pulled Ford's satchel across to him and laid his head down on it.

'I'm not hungry,' he said, 'I'm going to sleep.' He closed his eyes and Ford watched him for a moment. It seemed that Arthur really meant it. His breathing was starting to deepen and the frown on his face was relaxing as the muscles realised they could go of duty and go and have a lie down. After all, he had had a tiring day.

Ford got up and went to the doorway through which Kelp had passed. He palmed what he presumed to be the door-opening circuit and winced as a bright floodlight shone directly into his face. He hit the switch again and the light went off, leaving spots dancing in front of his eyes. He tried the button that looked like a light-switch, and the door swooshed open.

Kelp looked around as Ford entered. He was ensconced in a huge bucket-seat affair, over the sides of which the majority of his bulk fell in folds. The console in front of him was littered with sweet papers and old copies of _Playbeing_ magazine,

'Whadda ya want?' he said, with less rancour than the choice of words suggested. Ford smiled graciously and Kelp squirmed slightly in his chair.

'We were wondering if you had such a thing as a kettle and some water?' he asked, oozing apology. Kelp grunted,

'I think there's one over there, under the clothes,' he said, gesturing at a heap of grubby-looking tops of voluminous dimensions, 'As for water, you should be so lucky.'

'Right,' said Ford. He thought for a moment, 'That's a strange selection of food you've got out there – very...Earth-style. You've been there?' Kelp looked at him uncomprehendingly,

'Where?'

'Earth. Little blue-green planet. About so big.' Ford indicated a planetary disc roughly the same size as a beer mat. Kelp shook his head and Ford watched the ripples work their way down his body according to the laws of physics. 'Okay, so where did you get the food?'

'Got a bulk deal off a guy I met somewhere round the Horse Head Nebula. This man, he says to me, I got a load of eatables here, got to go, picked them up by mistake at a party. Turns out he was down on some stinking hole of a planet for a short time and this food was not what he wanted round his kitchen, so it's going cheap. Well, my mother always told me, don't pass up the offer of food, it could be your last meal you're looking at. So I take the food and off he goes. Sure enough, the food is bad, but what can you do? I ate most of it, you get the leavings, see?' Ford frowned,

'How could you accidentally pick up a whole load of food?'

'Take it from me, that wasn't no accident. This man, he was one cool businessman, but he's the type you know who leads you on so you don't see it till you look back. I told myself when he'd gone, 'Kelp, that was one crazy guy, but a crazy guy with his heads screwed on right.'' Ford stiffened,

'Heads?'

'Sure, the guy got two heads. That was his excuse. Claimed the other head had made him pick the stuff up. Never heard such a heap of...'

'Zaphod!' muttered Ford, half in admiration, half despair.

'Um, he said, anxious now to leave the room, 'Well thanks for the kettle,' he rummaged in the filthy pile and pulled out the battered silver object, 'I'll go and er...' He was saved the agony of finding a passably cool exit line by Kelp half yelling at him,

'Hey, what's the use of the kettle without the stove? Right there, next to it.' Ford smiled awkwardly, grabbed it and left. As the door slid closed again, he heard Kelp mutter,

'Schmuck.'

Ford leant back on the door, panting slightly. For some reason the idea of Zaphod trading Earth food, and especially tea, to total strangers, when he could have stored it on board the _Heart of Gold_ and let Ford pacify Arthur with it, had thrown him. So now he had come across as completely un-hoopy to this squelching spacer. He might never live it down.

He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. What did slug-man matter? Cool was a state of mind and he, Ford, could do it in his sleep. He looked across at the mattress, which had curled up its edges slightly around Arthur's obviously sleeping form. His resolve stiffened.

Ford placed the stove down on the floor a couple of yards away from the mattress and lit it. The low blue flame sputtered a couple of times and pretended to go out, before deciding to play fair and behave itself. Ford rooted in the locker and came out with the bottle of tonic water. He opened the lid, sniffed it and poured it out. The water came barely a centimetre up the side of the kettle. He placed the lid back on, and put the kettle on the stove. Then he reached back into the locker and brought out the Victoria sponge cake and the bag of bread-crusts. He looked at his satchel. Arthur's head rested on one end of it, his muddy hair ruffled by the edge of the flap. Ford crawled over to him and took hold of the corner of the flap. He eased it out from under Arthur's hair and gently laid it out flat to allow him access to the bag's contents. Arthur stirred slightly and Ford froze, then slipped his hand inside and, wincing at every move, fiddled around until he seized on the object for which he sought. He withdrew his hand and backed away. Returning to the bread and cake, he brought the object up to eye level.

A series of eye-watering pickings at tiny metal indentations and three broken fingernails reminded Ford that he had at his disposal a vicious saw, a magnifying glass, a tooth pick, a selection of screwdrivers, a bottle opener, a tin opener, a pair of pliers, a device for prising the back off recalcitrant copies of the _Guide_, a needle threader, a couple of fearsome looking medical instruments, a miniature flute, three tools with no perceptible use and, on the last possible try, a decent knife.

Picking up the bag of bread, Ford opened it and took out a single crust. He held the knife level with the plane surface and painstakingly cut away the outer layer of dense brownness in the centre of the back. The bread was stale, but not yet rock-solid. Ford laid the crust to one side on its bag and turned his attention to the cake. He lifted off the top layer and upturned it on the bread. Then he took up the lid of the caddy and sat it on his knee where it wobbled ominously. He scraped at the thin layer of cream on the cake with his knife and wiped it off into the tin lid, then replaced the top of the cake and put the whole back into the locker. He scraped the cream off the walls of the little cup until it slid to the bottom, them gingerly lifted the lid from the kettle.

Tiny bubbles were forming on the kettle base, a harsh citric smell rising from the surface of the tonic water as it heated. Ford replaced the lid and glanced at Arthur to check he was still asleep. He looked back at the kettle. What was it that Arthur used to tell him all the time, usually when Ford was waiting for food in Arthur's kitchen, ah yes, 'A watched pot never boils.' Ford grinned to himself: another piece of inane nonsense from the people who brought you 'You're awfully wet, is it raining?'

This particular pot, despite Ford keeping a close eye on it, was definitely coming to the boil. Ford took it off the stove quickly, not wanting to lose any more of the liquid as steam than he had to. He picked up the caddy and tipped it over the open top of the kettle. The marble rolled out and splashed into the water with a metallic clang. Ford jumped and checked on Arthur again. He slept on. Ford used as much of the powder as he dared, still leaving enough to retain the smell for Arthur, should this effort be as revolting as it promised to be.

He put down the caddy and swirled the water and tea-powder around in the kettle. The marbles rumbled around in it, helping to stir, and the water quickly turned a rich brown. Ford sniffed at the kettle. It smelt...odd. Not what he remembered of tea, but then he had never understood the stuff. Why drink tea when there's perfectly good alcohol in the house? He laid his doctored slice of bread on top of the caddy-lid cup and held the whole arrangement steady while he carefully poured the contents of the kettle into the middle of it.

A couple of times the marble lodged itself against the entrance to the spout, and he had to stop pouring and shake it to get it moving again, but soon, with persistence, the entire contents of the kettle had been deposited on the bread. He placed the kettle back on the floor and nervously lifted the bread from the cup. It dripped brown drops as it rose, revealing a brackish looking puddle of speckled beigeish liquid surrounding a tiny island of yellow-white cream. Ford's lips drew back in an involuntary spasm of disgust, and he picked up his penknife once more. The closest he had to a spoon was the magnifying glass, so he pulled it out and dipped it in the tea, swirling it around. The cream dissolved reluctantly into the tea, highlighting the black specks of dust that had made it through the bread strainer. Behind him, Arthur stirred and woke.

Arthur sat up, rubbing his eyes and stretching his legs. He looked miserable. Ford was uncertain whether or not to show him the potential disaster in his hand. It might help, or it might be the last straw. Arthur decided for him,

'What's that in your hand?' he asked, leaning forward to take a look. Ford slowly pushed it towards him,

'It's...' he couldn't bring himself to say 'tea'. It wasn't, strictly speaking, tea at all. Tonic water, tea dust and second hand confectioner's cream maketh not a traditional cuppa. He watched as Arthur took the cup and peered down into it. He saw his face struggle to find an appropriate expression, and fail. Arthur looked up at him again,

'Ford, is it...is it tea?' Ford blushed, and cursed himself for it, how utterly un-cool could you get?,

'It's...well, it's the closest I could manage. It might be...in fact it probably is, utterly undrinkable, but...'

'But what did you use?'

'I borrowed our host's kettle...'

'Yes, but I mean...'

'Um, tonic water. Cream. Bread.'

'Bread?' Confusion rippled across Arthur's brow,

'For straining it. It wasn't entirely successful though...'

'It never is,' said Arthur, and his mind's eye conjured up a thousand cups of tea with strainer-evading motes floating on the surface. He looked at Ford steadily and raised the cup to his lips.

'You don't have to,' said Ford quickly, 'I was only trying to...' Arthur took a determined sip. He rolled the liquid round his mouth. True, it was revolting, far too sweet, with overpowering citrus notes and excessive creaminess, yet...when he managed to swallow it, and the foul mixture had gone from his mouth, there was the faintest suggestion that tickled around on his taste buds and flew straight to the memory centres of his brain, a fragment of a sigh of the flavour of tea.

He put the cup down on the bread to stop it tipping over and looked at Ford, then he shuffled forwards, put his arms around his neck and hugged him. Ford let his hands settle on Arthur's back, rubbing his dressing gown and flicking off small clouds of dried mud. Arthur relaxed his hold a little and brought his head back to look into Ford's eyes.

'Thank-you for the tea,' he said, and rested his lips against Ford's.

Ford couldn't help it, he broke into a broad grin and his hold on Arthur tightened. He hugged him so hard it hurt, then loosened his grip and set about kissing Arthur properly. The taste in Arthur's mouth was one of the strangest combinations he had ever come across, but dancing through all of it was the taste of Arthur, which, if anyone had asked Ford at that moment, he would have described simply as 'tea'.

* * *

_Has this cup of tea finally brought Arthur round to Ford's point of view? Will the mattress get involved? Did the mattress have anything to do with getting itself brought on board? Will the mysteriously phrased Kelp manage to pick up the rest of his mattresses, and where is he taking them once he's got them? Will Ford and Arthur do the decent thing and produce a nice smutty chapter for everybody's delectation, or will Arthur's nervousness foil the Author's plans once more? Reviews always welcome and I'm in a fallow patch workwise, so you can expect better service ;-) _


	9. Wobble

**Chapter 9 - Wobble**

There was a general feeling of descent. The ship settled down on a blast of forced air and, after a pause, there was the sound of space-worthy bolts hissing open. The hatchway to the bridge slid back, and Kelp appeared in the door. He ignored Ford and Arthur, wrapped in a tight bundle of dressing gown and blazer on the far side of their damp mattress, and clicked a control to open the door. The rush of air, light and sound alerted the bundle to the fact that they were no longer alone, and Arthur did his best to disentangle himself, without very much success. Ford gripped him by the arms and held himself right next to Arthur's ear,

'Look at him, Arthur. He doesn't care. He doesn't actually give a flying photon what we're doing, so long as we're not damaging his stock.'

Arthur grunted, unconvinced. He watched as Kelp started up the fork-lift once again, and as he brought in the next load of mattresses and set them down only a couple of yards from their own mattress. As the fork-lift returned to its station, Kelp turned, replaced his control pad, and went back onto the bridge, never once glancing in their direction. Despite his distraction, Arthur found that his hands had been betraying him, rubbing softly up and down Ford's side and slipping inside his blazer.

The ship took off once more, putting the slightest pressure on them as it gained speed. Ford wriggled on top of Arthur, pulling the dressing gown out from between them. He shrugged off his blazer and laid it on the mattress beside him. The mattress made a gurgling sound of pleasure and Ford paused,

'What?' he asked. The mattress shrugged itself, rocking them gently,

'I am happy for you, floom. You have become close as I predicted you should, flurble.' Arthur wrinkled his brow, remembering something,

'Mattress...Zem, did you somehow persuade us to get you on board? I mean, I don't know why I wanted you to come on board so badly. Did you...do something to us to get on board?'

'Yes! Flurble,' the mattress said without a trace of embarrassment or guilt. Arthur frowned,

'I'm not sure I like the thought of you doing that. I mean, I like to think that my mind is my own. I don't take very kindly to people messing around with it. That's why I never go on very well with that hypnotist from Bognor Regis. Can you explain why you did it?'

'Of course! I wanted to come on board because I knew that you would be together on this trip and it would be a privilege to be present when you were expressing your great love...' Arthur felt himself going a deep scarlet.

'Ford!' he hissed, 'This is dreadfully embarrassing. I can't sit here doing...this, knowing that this mattress is...watching.'

'I can't help that, Arthur,' Ford replied in his normal voice, apparently unabashed by the mattress' presence. 'Besides, it may be sentient, but it's hardly a gossip, is it? It can't even remember our names for more than three seconds.'

'It can remember what we're up to though, can't it? It won't shut up about what we're doing. Besides, it's not a case of whether or not it's going to tell its friends. It's more a case of whether I feel comfortable having an audience, and I don't. I don't feel comfortable full stop actually, but leaving that aside, the fact that our furniture is talking back does not encourage me in the slightest.'

'What if we ask it to be quiet?'

'Oh? And I somehow just forget that it ever spoke?'

Ford shrugged,

'Look Zem, could you keep quiet for a bit? Only you're putting Arthur off.'

'Of course! I will be silent as a swamp before the dawn chorus.'

Arthur gave a little 'huh' of unimpressed nervousness and seemed to be attempting to block Ford a little, but his hand was still stroking gently at Ford's side, now it had wormed its way under Ford's sweater and was pushing at the slightly damp shirt. He realised what he was doing, and tried to withdraw his hand slowly, but Ford shot him a 'don't you dare' kind of look. He bent his head down to Arthur's and kissed his lips, bringing his hands up to thread his fingers through Arthur's filthy hair. He rested his weight on Arthur, pinning him down so that Arthur couldn't move, but could feel very well what he was doing to Ford. His hands slid round inside Ford's shirt, sliding under the hem at the back so that his fingers could run up over the warm muscles moving slightly as Ford wound his fingers deeper into his hair. Arthur found himself thinking what a good thing it was that Ford wasn't too heavy, then wondering why he was thinking this and not trying to get Ford off him,which was the obvious thing to do. Ford nibbled playfully at Arthur's lips and smiled to himself as Arthur whimpered under him and relaxed enough to join in. The hands on Ford's back were now more insistent, and Arthur rolled them over onto their sides, taking the weight off himself so that he could bring one hand around to fiddle with Ford's shirt buttons under his sweater.

Ford released Arthur's mouth and pulled away to yank his sweater over his head. Arthur's hands were down to the last button now and he tutted to himself as it refused his entreaties to undo. Giving up, he pulled hard and the button flew off. Ford recaptured his mouth and balanced himself on his shoulder, then his hip as he worked his arms out of the sleeves. Then he was back on top of Arthur, his bare shoulders looming large in Arthur's vision, and his hands had pushed up Arthur's t-shirt and his fingers were playing merry havoc with Arthur's skin, running lightly up and down his ribs before gripping hard and massaging deep into his sides. Arthur groaned and took a deep, gasping breath as Ford moved his attention away from Arthur's mouth and down to his chest.

'Ford...' he whispered,

'Mmgh?' Ford queried from somewhere around the base of Arthur's nipples. Arthur took another breath, trying to work out a question that would tie in at least vaguely with the questions in his head.

There was the gentle bump of the ship settling again and once more the hatchway opened. The fork-lift trundled out and returned. Kelp was just putting the control pad back in its holster, when he shifted his massive form and peered over his shoulder at Ford and Arthur.

'Hey!' he called, 'I hope you're not considering getting yourselves naked in my hold? You know the penalty I get for having naked beings in my hold?' He rubbed his chin and looked them up and down, his gaze sliding unconcernedly over the point where Ford's lip still nestled up cosily to the brownish pink of Arthur's nipple, 'Besides,' he went on, 'I think maybe I can sell that one after all. Give it time, look for the buyers, you know. What can I do if you go ahead and stain it, huh? So you keep your lower clothing on, got it?'

Arthur wriggled slightly, his urge to respond politely to the man who was, after all, their host, making him wish he had the will-power to push Ford off him. Kelp, however, did not seem to require a response. He threw a last warning look at them and hauled himself back to the bridge. Arthur tilted his chin so that he could look down at Ford, who defiantly poked out his tongue and prodded at Arthur's nipple with it. Arthur shuddered, then caught himself and brought his hand up to push Ford away. He was partially successful, in as much as his hand did make contact with Ford's head. Unfortunately, at this point, it failed to make any further moves regarding actual pushing or anything even vaguely dissuasive.

'Ford...' he said, attempting to sound casual, 'We should probably stop. You heard what he said. We'll get him into trouble.' Ford opened a lazy eye and wrinkled his nose,

'Arthur, you're not very imaginative, are you? It's not like he told us to stop altogether.'

'You said he wouldn't take any notice at all.'

'So he's a little more like you than I'd expected. He's not actually complaining, is he?'

'He noticed.' Arthur finally managed to summon up sufficient irritation to push, and Ford rolled off him and lay next to him on the damp mattress. The ship rose and Ford was silent. When Arthur chanced a sideways glance at him, he closed his eyes, smiling slightly to himself.

'Ford?' asked Arthur eventually,

'Shh. I'm thinking.

'I wish you wouldn't, it makes me nervous.'

There was silence as the ship pushed its way through the atmosphere, before coming to rest once more. It was a comfortable silence though, and Arthur found himself wondering when they would get somewhere where a little more privacy might be available. Ford was very warm next to him and his hand rested carelessly on Arthur's dressing gown where it started the climb up his leg. He tucked his hands behind his head, feeling the air chilling the damp patches on his bare chest.

The fork-lift rolled out again, and when it returned, it dumped its load of mattresses directly in front of the sole live mattress in the hold. Ford's eyes were still closed, his fingers playing fitfully with the edge of Arthur's gown. Arthur managed a slight 'Um...' but Kelp was back behind the bulkhead before he could say anything.

The effect of the new mattress wall was oppressive. It cut out the light from the tubes on the far side, and effectively sealed Ford and Arthur into the space occupied by their mattress, the food locker, and the couple of feet between the two, which was currently littered with the little stove and the remains of the quasi-tea.

Ford got to his feet, tripped over the kettle and staggered into the mattresses. He huffed in an irritable sort of way and tried to climb up the pile. He dug his toe in between two likely-looking mattresses in the base of the pile, but their edges were not of a sufficiently high quality and firmness to support his weight, and his heels sagged down towards the floor, tipping him backwards. Arthur leapt to his feet, caught his heel in his dressing gown, and succeeded in grabbing Ford around the waist to save him from falling, before bringing him down with him instead, and ending up sprawled under Ford, with a battered nose and a feeling that all was not going entirely to plan.

'Ford, whad are you tryid to do?' he asked, once Ford had removed himself from his person and he could get a hand up to staunch the blood flowing from his nose.

'Take a look, see if we can climb out.'

'Bud why? He'll led us oud when we ged whereber he's goig, won'd he?'

'Arthur, first rule of hitching: never get stuck in a corner behind a pile of mattresses in mid-flight.'

Arthur somehow doubted that this would count as most people's primary tactic for survival, or even make it into their top ten, but if Ford wanted out, it would save him the trouble of trying to persuade himself that he ought not to take advantage of their being holed up in a secluded spot in semi-darkness for a long-haul flight.

'Okay. Whad aboud if I gib you a had up?'

'A had? Blow your nose Arthur.'

'I card. I god a doseblid.'

'Oh. I've got something in my satchel, clear that up in no time.'

'Really? Id it sape por humads?'

'Probably,' said Ford cheerfully, and he rummaged in the depths of his big brown bag. 'Here,' he said at last,

'Id's dod anoder fish, is it?' Arthur asked nervously.'

'No. Just a spray thing...I think you just push it up your nose and squirt...or maybe you squirt it in the air then inhale...I don't know. Just hurry up, I want you to give me a leg-up.'

Arthur shot him a dirty look and took the little bottle. It appeared to be roughly nostril-shaped at the top, so he decided on the first course of action. He squeezed, and the interior of his nose seemed to completely vanish from inside his head. There was simply a void where a feeling of noseness should be. He pulled the bottle away and tentatively prodded at his nose with his little finger, trying desperately not to look as if he was picking his nose. The blood was gone; not a drop remained. On the other hand, although his finger was stopped by something when he pushed it sideways, for all that he could feel, his finger might just as well have been swanning about in deep space.

'Ford, I seem to have lost all the nerves in my nose.'

'Really? Well you weren't using them were you? I'll let you know if you're inhaling burning gas, okay?' replied Ford, in far too breezy a tone for Arthur's liking, 'Now come on, Get up here and give me a push.'

Arthur grudgingly got to his feet once more and stood next to Ford, who was slipping his hands between the mattresses, trying to gain purchase.

'Good. Give me something to stand on.'

Arthur clasped his hands together and held them at a suitable height for Ford to use them as a step. Ford placed a foot in his grip, and heaved on the mattresses. The edges sighed downwards, throwing him off balance, and he hopped backwards, grabbing at Arthur to stay upright. He tried again. This time he held the mattresses with only one hand and grasped Arthur's shoulder with the other. He made it this time, resting his elbow on the top of the pile, but Arthur could not support his weight,

'I'm going to drop you!' he cried, and Ford looked down and frowned,

'Hang on, I'll only be a minute.'

'You haven't got a minute!' Arthur could feel his fingers unlacing, the knuckles dragging past each other as they slipped apart. Ford felt the support start to go and looked around wildly for another foothold. He decided on Arthur's shoulder and twisted his right leg up behind his left in order to gain the right angle. His shoe dug into Arthur's shoulder, and Arthur yelped,

'Ouch! I still have nerves left_ there_Ford,' he said rather sarcastically. Ford either ignored or failed to spot the sarcasm, and chose to ignore the hurt tone as well. He heaved his centre of balance up above Arthur's head before sliding down to sit on Arthur's shoulders. They wobbled magnificently for a few seconds, as Arthur and Ford's inner ears both sought to work out the appropriate movements to achieve a position of equilibrium independently, and consequently failed on the first few attempts. Eventually they discovered a compromise whereby Arthur could remain in an upright position, and Ford could lean on the mattress-top and see into the hold beyond. As they settled into their new position, and Arthur wondered whether it would be justifiable to enjoy this time spent with his head snugly between Ford's legs, the ship landed once more, and the sound of the hatch opening travelled through Ford's thighs to Arthur's ears.

Kelp was moving in the hold. He had to have some sort of communicator with him, as he spoke to thin air, but seemed to be receiving replies.

'What's he doing?' asked Arthur from the region of Ford's groin,

'Shush! I'm trying to listen,' Ford hissed down at him.

'...Sure I got one. Yeah, alive as you or I. I'm telling you the truth, would I tell you such a lie? Right, so I touch down and I'm picking up when these two guys come up to me and say they got a live one to bring along. So they can hike on it, I ask you. Still, I got it on board and now I got them trapped in behind the rest of my stock, so they're going nowhere till I let them out. Hey, if you don't mind my asking, what does a straight-up mattress retailer like yourself want with a live one? ...Uh huh... Say, that's pretty kinky don't you think? There are really guys who go in for that? ...Why should I disbelieve you? I guess it dies pretty quickly though, huh? ...Yeah, I thought as much, wasn't that just what I was saying. Painful you think? Only I got some morals you know? ...Sure, sure. Okay, so you call me when you get into port and we'll arrange our affairs, yes? ...and the very best of health to you!'

There was silence, and Ford let go of the pile of mattresses. The movement lost them their carefully-gained balance, and Arthur staggered under Ford's teetering weight. After another slow and wobbly dance around the floor space next to the mattress, during which Arthur managed to knock over the stove and trip over the kettle Ford had left lying on its side in the middle of the space, they hit the edge of their travelling companion and fell on to it. Ford lay still for a second, until Arthur's hand came up and gripped him by the knee, prising his leg away from his face so that he had at least a slim chance of being able to breathe. Ford looked down at the leg as if he were surprised to see it there, and utterly failed to move it.

'My legs have gone to sleep,' he said, by way of explanation.

'What's he doing?' asked Arthur, choosing to play down the possible consequences of their finishing position.

'He's going to sell our mattress to some guy who wants to do something filthy with it that'll kill it, as far as I can make out.'

'We can't let him do that!' Arthur yelped, surprising himself with his vehemence.

Under them the mattress globbered miserably. It seemed that the prospect of being utilised for unpleasant purposes unknown had overcome its natural ebullience and actually registered with it on a conscious level. Ford patted it absent mindedly,

'Don't worry Zem, we'll save you...' said Ford, looking uncertainly at Arthur, rather as if he hadn't meant to say that; after all, Ford's record for looking after beings that just happened to be hiking with him was not striking...unless you counted ape-descended Earthmen with the middle name 'Philip', 'I'm not quite sure why, or how, but we will.'

Arthur scratched his head,

'I think we need to get off this ship Ford. Can your thumb transmit from in here?'

'Should do, if it's working at all. But we're only going to end up on another mattress trader in this bit of space, and if there's one thing I know about galactic traders, it's that they talk. If we disappear he'll know. He'll have weight sensors in his hold – they all do. He'll see us go, and he'll tell his friends, and, Zaphod's your cousin: we're back in the same position, except this time our pilot is a little more annoyed.'

'Zaphod...' murmured Arthur.

'What?' said Ford.

'Zaphod...What about the _Heart of Gold_?

'What _about_ the _Heart of Gold_? It must be light years away from us. Not a hope. The probability of it being anywhere n...' he trailed off and Arthur pulled himself up smugly,

'Exactly. Just how improbable do you think it is that we could send out a signal right now from your water-damaged thumb and get picked up, in time to avert the impending disaster, by a spaceship that should, by rights, be well out of range?'

'And that they happen to be using the _Infinite Improbability Drive_ at just the right time? I would say extremely improbable.'

'Do you think it will be enough?'

Ford looked at him uncertainly, then reluctantly started to pull his shirt back on.

'We'll just have to zarking well try,' he sad as he did up the buttons. Arthur looked regretfully at the vanishing expanse of skin and Ford winked at him,

'There are bedrooms on the _Heart of Gold_ Arthur,' he said with a glint in his eyes that made Arthur shiver slightly, and rummaged in his satchel for the thumb.

He pulled it out and hovered his own thumb over the green button. Arthur held up his hand,

'Just a second, Ford,' he said and crawled to the edge of the mattress. He reached out and grabbed the little, very nearly empty tea caddy, clutching it to his chest.

'Right. Ready,' he said, and Ford crooked his elbow. Arthur slipped his arm though the crook and felt the pressure of a friendly sort of squeeze.

'Better hold on to the mattress, or it might not come with us,' Ford cautioned, and to demonstrate, he wrapped his fingers round the binding on his side of it. Arthur did the same, getting unpleasant feelings of deja vu involving descending at great speed through the atmosphere. He steadied himself by feeling the warm shape of Ford's arm, twined with his own, and said,

'Ready!'

'Here goes!' said Ford, and pressed the button.

* * *

_Where will Ford and Arthur end up? Will they succeed in rescuing the mattress from the clutches of the naughty Kelp? Will they make it to the _Heart of Gold_? and if so, will they find a bedroom? Reviews will help immensely, as Ford is behaving like the Anti-Kirk at the moment, and __absolutely __refuses to keep his shirt off!_


	10. Drink, Shower, Bed

_A/N: This would have been up on Friday, but my account has been throwing a hissy fit and refusing to post anything for me since Thursday, so sorry, it got delayed. Still, I managed to pin them down MD, and I found them a bedroom. Shame I've vowed to keep this a 'T' really, kaja.clair, but never mind!_

**Chapter 10 – Drink, Shower, Bed**

Arthur squeezed his eyes tightly shut as the ship dissolved around him, and he felt the whirling giddiness of the transitions in and out of the sub-ether. He gripped Ford's arm with his own until his ribs started to bend under the pressure, and on his other side his fingers dug deeply into the soft, moist kapok beneath the cover of the mattress. 

The feeling of transportation subsided and he opened one eye a tiny crack. The room in which they had landed looked utterly normal. He looked to his right and saw Ford, inches away from him, also blinking his eyes open.

'Well, this seems to be a distinct improvement on the last time we arrived on the _Heart of Gold_,' said Arthur hopefully, 'No Southend for a start.' He looked around, 'In fact, everything seems worryingly normal. Do you think we actually made it Ford? Or have we just landed up somewhere else?' he asked, his face falling.

'It does look rather normal,' said Ford, squinting past Arthur's nose. He tried to sit up. Arthur came with him. Ford shot him a look, then glanced down, 

'Ah. Well, maybe not that normal then,' he said.

Their two heads apparently sprang from one torso.

'Well that settles it,' said Arthur, 'There is only one place in the universe where the current incumbent is so amazingly self-centred that he even finds a way to impress his personality on the laws of improbability. If we're turning into Zaphod, we are almost certainly on the _Heart of Gold_.'

Ford pouted a little, not wanting to get over-confident, but as his head started to flow magnificently away from his shared body, and Arthur's nose slowly morphed into a chrysanthemum, while the room around them began to show distinct signs of being made of chocolate that was being cut up and taken away by hordes of leaf-cutter ants armed with nail scissors; he had to concede that Arthur was probably right. 

The air began to fill with a soothing countdown of the local probability levels, and while Ford's head investigated its new found properties of viscosity and Arthur considered the benefits of having a prize-winning floral arrangement to replace his numbed nose, they shot towards normality, and arrived with a bump on a couch with a big red button overhead.

Arthur looked down at himself, and was vaguely relieved to find that he was master of his own body and not sharing it with Ford...not that that wasn't a situation he was hoping to rectify as soon as possible, but for the time being, it was nice to have an option on the movement of his own legs and arms.

Ford was already up off the couch and wandering around the room, trying to get his bearings. He glanced over at Arthur,

'Come on Arthur, get up, we haven't got all day. Let's go and see if we can find some drink, a shower and a bed. Preferably in that order.'

Arthur nodded and got up, clutching the little caddy to his chest.

'Where's the mattress?' he asked suddenly, realising that he had not been lying on it on the couch.

'It's over here,' said Ford, 'I suppose the couch wouldn't be a very comfortable place for it to materialise. Anyway, it seems to be asleep. Maybe it doesn't travel through the sub-ether very well. Some species don't you know – humans aren't that great it it, you're just getting used to it, but we'd better get some food inside you soon.'

'Your solicitude is very touching,' said Arthur with just a hint of sarcasm. After all, there was a large element of Ford's fault in everything that ever happened to them when Ford was around.

'We'll leave it here. We can come back and get it later.'

'You are not bringing it anywhere near my bed. Under any circumstances Ford. If the mattress comes, I don't.' Ford shot an appraising glance at him on hearing the remark, ran his tongue over his teeth and grinned,

'You didn't think I wanted it around, did you? I intend to go to bed with you tonight in a clean and dry state...and preferably just comfortably drunk too...though given that I rather want to remember the experience, I probably ought to go easy on that front.' Arthur rubbed at the hairs standing to attention on the back of his neck and nodded,

'All right. Come on then. Let's go and see who's around.'

The door opened with a sigh of pure pleasure and they emerged into the corridor and headed towards the bridge.

But there was nobody on the bridge. The computers bleeped gently in the background, but nobody was monitoring them. Ford sauntered forward to look down into the bubbles of view-area off to the sides, but there was no-one lurking in there either. Arthur hugged himself and bobbed up and down on the spot,

'Hello?' he called after a moment or two, 'Is anybody there?'

'Hi there! Eddie, the shipboard computer here! What can I do for you, fellow?' Arthur closed his eyes to calm himself before asking,

'Do you know where everybody is?'

'Sure do! I can tell you that there are currently other beings in stateroom 4a, in the embarkation area, in the galley, and in the cleaning closet at the end of the main corridor.' Eddie spewed ticker-tape into the ever increasing pile around his base and blooped happily. Arthur looked over to where Ford was playing with some controls,

'Well? Come on then. You were the one in a hurry...' Ford nodded, and reluctantly left the controls to their own devices. He fell into step with Arthur as he left the bridge.

'Galley or stateroom, do you think?' asked Arthur. Ford looked at him as if it were the most pointless question ever asked,

'Galley, Arthur,' he said, 'You know. Where the drink is...'

This thought seemed to give him a renewed sense of urgency, and he wrapped his fingers around Arthur's elbow and started to hurry him down the corridor.

They arrived in the galley to find Zaphod sitting nonchalantly at the table with his back to them. He had a half-full bottle of something-or-other in front of him and a tall glass of it half-empty in his hand. Although he exuded an aura of extreme cool, there was something about the rate of his breathing and the way his jacket was hitched up on the back of his chair that suggested he might just possibly have arrived there in rather a hurry upon hearing of their return. He turned his right head slowly round towards them as they entered, winked with its eye, turned it back, then turned his other head and followed them as they moved round the table, 

'Hi, Ford baby, good to see you again. I tell you, you've missed some really wild adventures...'

'Mmhmm...' said Ford absently. Arthur noted the return of the affected disinterest Ford tended to display when attempting to out-cool Zaphod. He tutted to himself and pursed his lips in mild contempt for their little competition.

Ford sat down on the corner of the table and swung his legs slightly, winking at Arthur with the eye furthest from Zaphod and smacking his lips in a 'well, well, well,' sort of way,

'Actually,' he said after a moment, 'We were having a pretty wild time ourselves.'

'Yeah?' asked Zaphod, eyes wide,

'Yeah!' He picked up the bottle, took a cautious sniff, then put it to his lips and took a swig. He wrinkled his nose in an appraising sort of way and raised one eyebrow, but Zaphod had snatched the bottle back in a half-hearted sort of way.

Arthur was pleased to note that the disinterest was wearing off, but alarmed to realise that their tone was slipping into the friendly banter that usually led to a night spent in the nearest bottle.

'We fell out of a ship, you see, and we were picked up by this trader who turned out to have some pretty poor ideas regarding our personal safety, so we worked ourselves up the highest improbability factor we could and hitched on over,' said Ford.

'And _that_,' thought Arthur, 'Is one of the greatest under-tellings of any story, ever.'

'That doesn't quite explain why I have, so I am informed, a large, wet, live mattress in my embarkation area,' said Zaphod, a look of mild annoyance sweeping across his faces.

'No. Well, it sort of came with us.' Ford fumbled for an appropriate explanation, 'It's kind of a long story Zaph. It needed rescuing. A mattress in distress, if you like – adventure, yeah?'

'Sure Ford. Adventure. Just so long as I don't have that zarking robot moaning to me about having to mop up in there. If it makes a mess, you clear it up, got that?'

Ford held his hands up,

'Sure. I didn't actually intend taking it along with us originally. It has a very magnetic personality, know what I'm saying?'

'Manipulative sort?'

'Mmm.'

Zaphod shot a look at Arthur, which he could not, at first decipher, then he realised: Zaphod was placing him in the same category. According to his logic, there was no way that Ford would put up with him if he wasn't in some way tampering with Ford's mind. Indignation sprang to the fore,

'Now look here, I know I...' but Ford cut him off, his demeanour suddenly changing from relaxation to action,

'Go and whistle in the corridor Arthur.' he said, 'No actually, even better, go and find Zaphod's secret stash of drink in his room. I need more than this,' he indicated the two-thirds empty bottle, 'Or I'll never get through the night.' He ignored Zaphod's protests and Arthur's muttered 'What did your last slave die of?' and ushered Arthur out of the room. Once he had gone, he grasped Zaphod by two of his arms and pushed him up hard against the wall,

'Right, cuz. You're going to tell me why you didn't tell me you had pilfered Earth-food on board the night we first arrived here, and why you traded it on to some lousy little son of an Arcturan mega-slug who didn't even like it, when Arthur would have done anything to have just some of it.' His grip was solid, but did not include Zaphod's third arm, which came up and prodded him squarely in the chest as Zaphod's face rearranged itself into a more dangerous aspect,

'Look, I didn't know you'd be bringing monkey-man there up with you,' he snapped, 'I didn't even know you were coming. I was counting on that trade. Besides, what's the ape-man worried about? He's got the synthimatics. That's good enough for the rest of us. In fact, they're designed to be a playbeing's dream, so it just shows...' Ford cut him off,

'He's not used to this sort of thing,' he said quietly, 'It gets to him. He just needs a bit of...He likes to have things around him that remind him of home, and the synthimatics don't get it close enough. But you should have told me you had it anyway,' he finished, his voice rising again towards the end.

'That's right, defend your monkey. You know how uncool your attachment to that is?' Ford bit his lip hard, he wasn't about to get into a fight with Zaphod right now, but the temptation was enormous. He took a deep breath and tried a different tack,

'Did you only trade with the one guy, or did you hand it out to a few?' Zaphod looked ceilingwards,

'Hey, can you let go of me? This is not a position I want to be found in on my own ship...'

Ford released his arms and Zaphod sat back down, his right head throwing a very nasty look at Ford, while his left head kept his cool and framed an answer.

The door opened, and Arthur appeared, carrying a pair of bottles in black and white,

'I found these. I am not returning to that room, Ford. The things your friend here has lying around in there beggar belief.'

Zaphod smiled a smile that was half sheepish, half immensely proud of himself and winked at Arthur,

'Hey, monkey-man, you want to broaden your horizons a little, you know?' Arthur closed his eyes once more, finally remembering why he found Zaphod so difficult. Ford took the bottles from Arthur and looked at him with an expression that would have been apologetic, if he had any real concept of what that meant,

'Look, Arthur, I haven't quite finished talking to Zaphod, and it's kind of private. Go and amuse yourself for a minute...go find Trillian or something...she is still around, right?' he asked, glancing quickly at Zaphod, who returned a look that said, 'and why wouldn't she be?', 'Okay? I'll be a couple of minutes, that's all. Arthur looked at him, then at the two bottles, and raised his eyebrows in disbelief,  
'You expect me to believe that?' Ford looked at him with perfect innocence,

'I promise,' he said. Arthur blew out his cheeks and considered for a second, then turned on his heel and left the room.

Ford turned back to Zaphod,

'Well? How many people did you sell that stuff to?' Zaphod scratched his heads,

'I can't really remember, I mean hey, it was ages ago. I kinda get the feeling I might have spread it around a bit, you know? Cos I remember this one guy who was meant to be taking the lot, he had such an un-hoopy attitude regarding payment, that I thought I wouldn't give him everything. So I got rid of him and scarpered with about half the stuff. I remember I wanted to get rid of it quickly, while it was still news, you know? Pathetic little planet in the end of _nowhere_ baby, okay, so it bites the space-dust and pow! all the stuff I've got on board is near enough all that's left. Well that commands a price kiddo, no matter how insignificant the planet. Only thing is, give it a week or two and no-one will even recognise the name, if they ever did, I mean it's not like it was an event, is it? So I parked up near a pretty popular space port and hooked up with a raft of traders coming back in from the outliers. Just gave 'em bulk deals on the lot, but at...disaster remains rates, I couldn't leave it any longer, understand?' There was a glint in his eye and Ford nodded with a faint smile,

'That guy we were hitching with, the one with designs on us and our mattress, he had some left over. Seems he didn't think much of Earth cuisine,' Zaphod made a 'not hard to believe' sound.

'So,' continued Ford, 'I was thinking, if we could catch up with some of those other guys, they might not have liked it either and we could get back some of that food for Arthur.'

'Hey! Time consuming and potentially disastrous for me. I mean, some of those guys didn't get the best deal out of me, know what I'm saying?'

"I'm sure. But Zaph, if we can just use the _Heart of Gold_ to make the jumps, Arthur and I could just pop across in a scout. They needn't know we're anything to do with you.'

'Uh...No,' said Zaphod firmly.

'I'll buy you ten crates of the old Janx Spirit...' Ford tried,

'Baby, the day I can't afford my own supply is the day my heads go bang. I'd rather keep my ship and my keen physical integrity, thanks. Those guys might not be too happy to see me keep either.'

'Okay, okay.' said Ford, leaning back in his chair and picking up the white bottle, 'I'll just have to find another way to get to them.' He took a drink and passed it to Zaphod who topped up his glass and started to swirl it around until it was nearly leaping over the rim. He downed the glass and poured another one, handing it to his other head. which had been looking at the first head in anticipation. He passed the bottle back to Ford, who tried harder to get his share with no glass to help him out. They sat in silence for twenty minutes, studiously watching the alcohol level in the bottle go down, and avoiding mentioning the impasse they had reached. At the end of this time, the bottle was empty, and so was Zaphod's ability to hold back his rather un-cool curiosity. He spoke,

'Why do you want the stuff so badly baby? I mean, ape-man has coped up to now, and it's not like you owe him any favours. I mean, you rescued him from his crummy exploding planet, what more does he expect?'

'It's not a case of him _expecting_ anything...' said Ford, taking a drink from the black bottle that made him sit back sharply in his chair and take a long, careful breath.

'Hey...uh?' said Zaphod, his increasingly drink addled mind struggling to keep up. To help it along, he grabbed the bottle from Ford and poured a full glass. Ford was in a better state; despite his best attempts, he was getting less to drink than Zaphod and it didn't look like Zaphod was in a mood to remedy that. He managed to retrieve the black bottle and get in a single gulp before Zaphod took it back and slowly refilled his glass once more. Another twenty minutes saw the destruction of the contents of the second bottle, and Zaphod looked back at Ford as he put the empty bottle heavily back on the table,

'Ford, are you..._doing_ the monkey?' Ford looked up at him, slightly bleary-eyed, and was just considering whether or not to nod, when a thought struck him and he leapt to his feet,

'Zarquon's teeth!' he said under his breath, 'Gotta go, Zaph, I'll catch you later, yeah?'

'Ungh,' was the only response from the two heads that had just fallen forward onto the table.

Ford hurtled out of the room and down the corridor, slowing to a halt as he came to the door of stateroom 4a. He opened the door and peered round. Trillian sat in front of a desk littered with notes and equations on scraps of paper. She looked around as Ford stepped into the room,

'Hi Ford. Zaphod's in the galley. You okay?'

'Mm,' said Ford vaguely, 'Yes, I've seen him...' Trillian sniffed the air,

'Been with him a while, have you?' she said, with a look of mild disapproval, then she looked more closely,

'Ford, you're absolutely filthy, where have you been?'

'Long story,' said Ford unhelpfully, 'Has Arthur been in here?'

'I haven't seen him...' Trillian watched in puzzlement as Ford turned and left without another word.

Ford finally tracked Arthur down to a couch on the bridge, where he lay fast asleep with his mouth hanging open and his arms huddled round himself. Ford smiled fondly and reached down to shake him by the shoulder.

'Ngh?' asked Arthur, eyes still tightly shut. Ford shook him again, 'Nghis et?' asked Arthur,

'It's me,' said Ford. Arthur opened his eyes and yawned,

'Well you took your bloody time, didn't you?' he said, looking at the bridge chronometer. Ford shrugged,

'Zaph and I had to talk something over.'

'Drink something over, more like,' said Arthur, backing away from Ford's pungent breath, 'I don't suppose you saved me any, did you?' he asked, without much hope,

'I couldn't, Zaph wasn't letting the bottle out of his sight. But it's okay,' he said, brightening, 'We can get some more. We'll grab some from Zaphod's room on the way past. Don't worry,' he added, as Arthur started to protest, 'You can wait outside the door.' Arthur nodded and Ford grabbed his wrist and hauled him to his feet. 'Come on,' he said, and dragged Arthur after him, down the corridor.

At Zaphod's room, Ford let go of Arthur and slipped inside, returning a minute or so later with a flat box and a blue bottle which he shook gently and eyed with interest,

'Well, I'm not sure what it is, but I tend to trust Zaph's taste,' he said,

'I know what that means,' said Arthur, 'It means I'm about to have my head blown off.' Ford grinned broadly at him,

'If you're very nice to me,' he said, and Arthur gulped as all the hairs on the back of his neck stood suddenly to attention.

They walked on down the corridor until they reached the door of what had been Ford's room. The door opened with a contented hum,

'Have a nice night!' it called after them as they entered. Arthur eyeballed it, daring it to say anything else, but it fell silent as Ford dumped his satchel on the chair and the bottle on the bed.

'Right, let's get you sorted for item one, he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed and patting the covers next to him, before reaching down to take off his shoes. He gave a little moan of pleasure as they came off, and he leaned back, wiggling his toes luxuriously. Then he tossed the box to Arthur who opened it and was confronted by half a cold pizza, if something with blue and purple decoration on top could reasonably be referred to as a pizza. Ford gestured at him to eat it, and being extremely peckish, Arthur picked up a slice and sniffed it. It smelt more like food than toxic waste, so he nipped off a corner with his teeth.

Whatever the blue and purple stuff might have been, it tasted remarkably like cheese, tomato and pineapple, so he threw caution to the wind and managed to get two-thirds of it eaten before Ford snatched the last two slices and stuffed them hungrily into his mouth. He reached for the bottle and opened it. Arthur sat down a measured distance from him on the edge of the bed, and Ford sighed and shuffled up to him. He proffered the bottle and Arthur put up his hand to stop him,

'You try it first. I've tasted some of what Zaphod pleases to call potable,' he said. Ford shrugged and tipped the bottle to his lips. He took a swallow and licked his lips,

'It's tame Arthur. Honestly, barely worth the effort.' Arthur looked at him, unconvinced, and took the bottle. He nervously raised it and drank.

'Ford,' he spluttered, 'I dread to think what your throat must be like. That,' he paused for a good hearty cough, 'Does not fall within the bounds of what I would refer to as tame.'

'Oh don't be fussy Arthur, it's hardly powerful stuff. Get it down you. I said drink, shower, bed, and I meant it.' Arthur took another drink, which seemed to do a little less damage on its way down this time, then pushed the bottle away. Ford raised his eyebrows, but saw that he wasn't going to get anywhere trying to force him, so took another gulp himself and put the cap back on.

'Anyhow, you'd only have moaned about it on my breath. You won't have that problem now, will you?' He got up, not waiting for an answer, but Arthur gave him one anyway,

'You're such a romantic,' he said, and he almost meant it.

Ford was striding towards the bathroom.

'Drink,' he said, 'Shower.'

Turning back to Arthur he started to pull off his blazer, then his sweater. As his curls emerged in a shower of dried mud from their journey through the neck of the woolly, he looked at Arthur,

'Going to get washed in your dressing gown Arthur? Probably not a bad idea actually, it stinks of swamp.' Arthur looked at him and took off the gown as nonchalantly as he could, the tea caddy clanging in the pocket as it hit the floor. Turning back to Ford, he felt the first real pangs of self-consciousness hit. Earlier it hadn't been a problem really, they had been in the dark, and it had all happened so fast, but now... Now Ford was watching him as he slowly undid the buttons of his shirt and pulled the tails out of his trousers. He slowly undid the cuffs, never taking his eyes off Arthur, and never blinking once. Arthur's own eyes started to water, and he made an ineffectual pass at one of his own buttons, which really didn't need undoing anyway, belonging as it did to a set of slip-on pyjamas. Ford moved towards him,

'Really Arthur, you're...' he didn't bother to finish, he just slipped his arms around Arthur's waist, pulling him close, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him.

Taken by surprise, it took Arthur a second or two to get his thoughts together to the extent that he could bring something of his own to the encounter. By that time, Ford's tongue was dancing wildly in his mouth and Ford's lips were hot brands against his own. His hands fell onto Ford's shoulders, and they pushed back the shirt they found there. Ford pulled back his arms to let the shirt slide off, and started to pull at Arthur's own top.

Arthur whimpered as Ford's hands rubbed up under his t-shirt, pushing it up to his armpits and electrifying the skin as they passed. He whimpered again as Ford pulled back from the kiss to get the interfering clothing out of the way,

'Yep, I think we both smell pretty bad,' he said, grinning again. Arthur swallowed hard and allowed himself a slight smile, which turned into an extremely sheepish grin as Ford gave up trying for anything in the way of slowness, and pulled off his trousers, underpants and socks in one magnificent move of neatness-defying bravado, and he realised that he was going to enjoy this, a lot.

'Ford,' he said, in a commendably level voice as he dragged off his own trousers, willing his self-consciousness to disappear, and making a brave show of it, 'I suppose there isn't any chance of this shower actually involving water is there?' Ford screwed up his face and shook his head,

'Not an option, I'm afraid,' he said, taking Arthur by the hand and leading him into the bathroom. Once there, he strolled over to a set of controls in the corner and pressed a button. A soothing voice seemed to come out of nowhere,

'Thank-you for using this Sirius Cybernetics Sens-O-Shower, which has been designed with your comfort and convenience in mind. Step in, relax and allow the currents to wash away your dirt and your worries. Share and enjoy.

'Bloody lazy Zaphod, still hasn't taken the zarking thing off factory settings,' griped Ford, 'I've heard it a hundred times.'

'Ford, I've used these, but I still don't understand how they work.'

'I don't think you're supposed to. It's something about sub-atomic particles moving straight through you, but attracting dirt as they exit, or something. Probably best not to think about it.'

'So why does it feel like water if you shut your eyes?'

'Oh I don't know. Probably some sort of reciprocal response circuit tapping into your subconscious or...or,'

'You mean that thing is messing around inside my head?'

'Yes. No. I don't know. Look Arthur, are you going to ask questions all night, or are you going to get over here and zarking well shower with me?'

Without waiting for him to answer, Ford came across and grabbed Arthur's hand, pulling him into the line of fire of something that very much resembled a shower head. There was nothing to be seen emerging from it, but as he stepped under it, Arthur felt the tingling sensation he had experienced the last time he had had a shower on this ship. The mud started to fly off his skin in all directions, firing itself towards wall-vents and grilles in the floor, where it disappeared cleanly into the system. Looking at Ford, who had been even more thoroughly caked in mud than him, was like watching a swarm of flies descending on someone, but played backwards. Flecks and chips of mud and slime flung themselves away from him and left him golden-peach and clean all over. His hair, relieved of its claggy coating, sprang into fluffy brown curls in a halo round his head, so that Arthur couldn't stop himself bringing up his hand and running it through them. Ford pushed his head into the hand like a cat, then dove at Arthur's midriff, flicking his fingers down the sides of his ribs and across the line of his hips. Arthur shrieked and jumped backwards, laughing, coming up hard against the wall, his eyes creased shut with laughter,

'Ford, that tickles!' he said, and bent double to present less surface area as Ford went for him again,

'Good!' said Ford, his grin so wide that had Arthur been in a position to look at it, he might well have felt that his breaths were numbered. But Ford was focusing for the present on what he could do with his hands,

'You've had,' he paused to dart at an undefended area on Arthur's left flank that made him scream and sink to the floor, 'A rotten day or two, and you've been bloody miserable, with reason, I'll grant you, but,' he paused again to grasp Arthur's foot, trap it under his arm and start to mercilessly tickle the sole so that Arthur writhed and yelled, his face pulled back into a smile which his every word protested, 'Now you are going to have fun and be a bit reckless, if it kills me,'

'Which it might...very well...do...' said Arthur almost incoherently between giggling shrieks of outraged pleasure. He kicked at Ford with his free foot and it caught him in the middle of his back, dislodging him from the end of Arthur's leg and firing him half-way across the room. He turned round, still grinning, and looked at Arthur who was lying in the corner, panting hard, a ridiculous smile plastered across his face as he rubbed at the abused sole of his foot. Ford advanced on him on his knees, rubbing his hands together in preparation, and stopped just out of reach of Arthur's poised foot. He made a grab for it and Arthur pulled it swiftly out of the way,

'Oh no you don't!' he said, and looked shrewdly up at him through his eyebrows. He waited as Ford gazed at him, still breathing heavily, and tried to match his stare. Eventually, however, he just couldn't hold out any longer. He blinked and Ford went for him, flinging himself towards his stomach. Arthur's eyes opened just in time for him to grab at Ford's wrist and divert him from actually landing bodily on top of him. He twisted him off to one side and brought his other hand up to push Ford's shoulder back down onto the tiles, rubbing his thumb in circles on his wrist as he did so, making Ford squirm.

As he was pushed inexorably down to the floor under Arthur's superior weight, Ford glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw an opportunity. He stuck out his leg and managed to wrap his foot round the inside of Arthur's knee. He tugged with it sharply, and Arthur lost his balance and flopped down on top of him, squashing the air out of him,

'Get off me, you lump!' Ford gasped, and Arthur pushed back off him, laughing. Ford's leg was twined with his own, and as Ford moved, trying to get the upper hand again, it pulled them both off balance and they rolled onto their sides. There was nothing between them but clean, fresh-smelling flesh, and Ford's fingers were back, teasing at the hair behind Arthur's ear and flicking ticklish touches on his neck,

'I wonder how well you'd take a little retaliation?' mused Arthur out loud, and he slipped a hand down to Ford's armpit and began to tickle him mercilessly.

At first he thought he must be dealing with one of those infuriating people who can sit calmly though a bout of tickling that would be enough to send any normal person spiralling into insanity, and claim that they 'just don't think about it', or have 'trained myself not to react'. But then he noticed a certain twitching at the corners of Ford's lips, a few inches from his own face, and a clenching of his hands in slight spasms against his back. Arthur licked his lips knowingly, and kept up his tickling.

At last Ford's mouth opened in a silent scream of repressed giggles, and then he gave in, laughing like a maniac and pulling himself closer to Arthur, so that he was forced to let his hands slip from the warmth of Ford's armpits. When his giggles subsided, he rearranged himself so that he could reach more easily and lowered his head to Arthur's, kissing him with a smile that refused to go away, draping his lips lazily across Arthur's because he couldn't form them into a better shape for kissing him while he was smiling so hard. Arthur grinned back and tried to make up for Ford's lack of self-control, putting his heart and soul into the kiss, so that Ford eventually closed his eyes and, as the smile subsided, surrendered to a thorough, and very professional, kissing from Arthur Dent, who was making his breathing erratic. A long-awaited kissing from Arthur Dent, his monkey.

The Sens-O-Shower continued to blast them with cleansing beams of something or other, but it didn't make their position any more comfortable, so at last Arthur pushed Ford reluctantly away and said,

'Come on, I seem to remember the third thing on your list was bed, and if I don't get into one, my back might never recover.'

Ford nodded and got to his feet, hauling Arthur up after him,

'Right,' he said, grasping Arthur's hand as if he thought he might leave if he let go. Arthur thought he needn't have bothered: the probability of Arthur's walking out at this point was so low that even the Infinite Improbability Drive would have thought twice before allowing it to happen. Ford prodded at the Sens-O-Shower button and it purred,

'Thank-you, have a nice day, share and enjoy.'

They stumbled to the bedroom like excitable teenagers, and hooshed the various bits and pieces littering the bed onto the floor. There was a crash, and an unholy smell of spilt alcohol flooded the room. Ford waved a disregarding hand at it,

'Leave it Arthur, it'll evaporate in a couple of minutes, just don't tread on it in the morning.'

The fact that Ford was being so blasé about a wasted quantity of alcohol was stunning. It gave Arthur a warm and fuzzy feeling. He watched as Ford leapt into the bed and lay invitingly on his back, rubbing his stomach. Arthur scratched his head, a flash of panic momentarily leaking through his fuzzy happiness: he was heading into unknown territory. Ford spotted his uncertainty and half-closed his eyes,

'Come on Arthur, I...' but he didn't seem to know how to finish the sentence, and Arthur was still standing there, every second making it harder for him to get into the bed. And Ford sat up and leaned forward to where Arthur stood at the end of the bed, and held him by the waist, and moved in and ran his tongue from his inner thigh, all the way up his torso, his neck, his chin, until he was kissing him again and his hands moved up to Arthur's shoulders and pulled him back with him on to the bed, and Arthur let him pull him with him and as he hit the bed and Ford swung his knee over him, pinning him to the mattress, he relaxed and his panic subsided.

He reached down and groped for the covers,

'It's bloody freezing in here, Ford,' he said, and Ford smiled, he liked Arthur best when he was moaning about something,

'Alright, we'd better do something to get warm then, hadn't we?' he replied, and helped to pull the covers up over their shoulders.

In the tight confines of the space between covers and mattress, two bodies were pressed together as if their lives depended on it, while their heads got on with the important business of kissing each other silly. Two sets of roving hands ran up and down two smooth, clean torsos and two pelvises started to lose control of themselves and vie for control of the rhythm of their movements. Ford released Arthur's mouth and slid his head round to the side of Arthur's, nipping his way down his cheek and into the rich, warm curve of his neck. One of Arthur's hands shot up and buried itself in his hair, pressing him closer in, even as his head tilted towards him in an involuntary attempt to repel the invasion.

The covers over their lower halves were in a tumult, pulled this way and that by the tangle of legs straining for purchase on the sheets beneath them and wrangling for mastery in the race to give their owners the best shot at achieving the angle they desired. Arthur nibbled thoughtfully on Ford's ear and took a deep breath as, for a moment, his own legs managed to grip and his pelvis got the angle it needed to move just so against Ford's thigh, then the foot lost its grip and Ford's found it, and Arthur felt the devastating rubbing against his stomach and heard Ford's abandoned moan as it leaked out into his neck. Then Ford pushed himself back up, his face flushed pink and glowing, and he smiled softly at Arthur, blowing short, hard breaths onto Arthur's slightly sweaty, wondering face, and reached down between them and said,

'Now, Arthur?'

It was a command more than a question, but Arthur didn't need it. His back arched in pleasure as his brain gave up on thinking and he felt Ford, stiffly straining on top of him, his straight arms rippled with taut muscle as they pushed his weight off Arthur and he groaned a happy grunt of relief before letting himself flop down at Arthur's side and closing his eyes with a contented, smiling sigh.

Arthur looked at him with drowsy, half-closed eyes and rolled onto his side to face him. He kissed the smile and was rewarded with a glimpse of the edge of an eye, a smirk and a quiet 'Mmmm', before his hitchhiker's thumb-operating thumb hooked itself behind Arthur's upper arm and pulled him into a cosy position to get some sleep.

'Drink, Shower, Bed,' he said, and drifted off to sleep.

* * *

_What will Ford tell Zaphod now that his requirements are so inextricably linked with Arthur? What will become of the mattress when it gets bored of hanging around in the Embarkation Area? Will Ford manage to persuade Zaphod to aid him in his quest for groceries? Reviews help things leak out of my head ;) _


	11. Piracy

_A/N: I am aware that there are some timeline problems re the canon versions of who should be on the _Heart of Gold _at this point, but since Douglas himself never seemed to worry unduly about continuity, I'm going to bravely ignore them!  
_

**Chapter 11 - Piracy**

Arthur woke up with a sigh of contentment. He was warm and comfortable...if a little sticky, and he found, much to his relief, that he really, truly didn't have any morning-after-the-night-before type regrets.

Ford was snuggled into his back, snoring unpleasantly, but that didn't seem to matter very much either. All around them, the little sounds of the ship filtered into Arthur's head, jogging his memory about things he had thought he'd forgotten. That little ticking sound was the secondary heating pipes warming over for their testing cycle (as far as he could work out). That thunking sound coming from somewhere down the other end of the ship was the flap on the water-storage venting pipes banging against its housing as the pressure changed, and that stomping sound coming along the corridor was...

Zaphod.

The door sighed open,

'Thank-you for making a simple door very happy!' it said. Zaphod kicked it with the heel of his boot and marched up to the bed.

'Ford!' he yelled. The snoring stopped and Ford jerked awake, turning to look sleepily at Zaphod who stood over him, hands on his hips, third hand pointing its finger at him,

''Wha?' asked Ford. Zaphod opened his mouth, but his right head had spotted Arthur,

'Oh, so you _are _doing the monkey,' he said, distaste dripping from every syllable. Arthur frowned at him,

'Oh, really,' he said, and pulled the covers huffily up over his shoulders and turned away.

Ford heaved himself up in the bed and propped himself up with his elbows. He looked at Zaphod questioningly. There was about the two-headed man an aura of impatience and irritation that sat uneasily with his usual calm ignorance of galactic events.

'What?' Ford tried again.

Zaphod folded his arms and drummed his fingers restlessly on his thigh,

'The ship seems to be under attack. By a trading ship. You wouldn't happen to know anything about this, would you?'

'Me? No,' said Ford unconcernedly, 'Why? Don't you recognise it?'

Zaphod shook his heads,

'As a matter of fact, I do, but that's no reason for me to assume it's not your problem. For a start, he started his first message, (before I told him to zark off and die, which perhaps didn't actually help,) with the useful bit of information that we were carrying a stolen live mattress.'

Ford gaped, then pulled his face into a hoopier kind of expression and shrugged,

'I can't help that he's a galloping story-teller, can I Zaph? It's our mattress, he agreed to bring it along, under duress, I might add. If he's suddenly found he can get a good price for it, that's his problem, not ours.'

'Uh uh. No Ford. I'm telling you, I don't need the hassle. Look kid, I've been chased half way across the Galaxy by various law-enforcement agencies, and I've had a ball, but I'm getting just a little bit bored with it now, and I certainly don't intend to be pursued for something that's nothing to do with me. Hell, if someone's chasing my ship, it had better be me they're after. Besides, he's liable to recognise me if we do meet, and that's another reason I'd rather keep this strictly business, yeah?'

'Of course,' said Ford, realising, 'He's one of the traders you pulled a fast one on with the food...'

'He was away before I noticed and could rectify my mistake,' corrected Zaphod warningly. Ford nodded, unconvinced,

'So what do you want me to do about it?'

'I want you to go and persuade your mattress to go across to his ship. I already tried, but it wedged itself behind the console and I'm not sweating my shirt off to get it out.'

'Zaphod, if it doesn't want to go, I am not going to waste my morning sweet-talking a zarking great mattress into volunteering for a fate worse than death,'

'Hey, are you okay Ford baby? This is a mattress we're talking about. I hardly think it's going to suffer any indignity by going with slug-man out there.'

'I'm not doing it,' Ford closed his eyes defiantly, 'You didn't hear him talking to this guy he was going to sell it to. Arthur and I brought it along and we're not going to abandon it now.'

'You really have spent too long with the primates Ford, you've developed some seriously un-froody points of view. I mean, it sounds like you've got a conscience man!' He turned, unsmiling, and stalked off out of the room, calling over his shoulder,

'You're gonna get us out of this one, and quick.'

Ford sat up, swung his legs out of the bed, wrapped the sheet around his waist and hobbled after him, wading through the excess material gathered around his feet.

'Hey!' cried Arthur after him, but Ford wasn't listening as he sped off after Zaphod and the door shut behind him.

Arthur drew his bared knees up to his chin and sat there in the denuded bed, getting colder and colder, until he decided he really couldn't wait for the return of the sheets any longer. He got up and trudged heavily across the room, his eyelids drooping. Cold and apparently under attack he might be, but given the chance, he would just as happily have gone back to bed as anything else. Unfortunately, since all the bedding had gone with Ford, that option was closed to him, and he headed for the heap of clothes on the floor by the chair.

The heap turned out to be not only untidy, but foul-smelling and distinctly unpleasant to the touch. There was nothing for it, the clothes would have to be washed. Undoubtedly, if he tried hard, he could find the laundry on board this ship. On the other hand, as things stood, such an effort would involve wandering naked through the corridors where Trillian might easily happen across him, and somehow, he didn't fancy that. He picked up the pile, holding it as far away from him as he could, and walked with a wrinkled-up nose to the bathroom. The shower kicked off memories in his head that made him gulp and lower the pile of clothes to waist level, but the heap was too unpleasant to retain for the purposes of modesty, so he dumped them under the shower and pressed the button.

The shower did its spiel and Arthur groaned, it was amazing how quickly those innocent words became unbearable. Looking back at the clothes, however, he watched with a fair helping of pleasure as the dirt and slime started to leap off them and into the grilles. Within minutes Ford's blazer, trousers and sweater had regained their former colours and textures, and he pulled them out, saying to himself that his dressing gown was chunkier and would need more time. In the meanwhile, he could just fold Ford's garments neatly and hold onto them...just keep them nice and flat by pressing them up close to his chest like so...

He walked back to the bedroom, leaving his own clothes in the shower, and placed Ford's pile down slowly on the bed. He patted them down, just to make sure that they weren't going to leap into creases the moment his back was turned, and walked back to the bathroom.

He hauled out the dressing gown and shook it. No mud cascaded down from it, and when he held it to his nose, all he could smell was the clean, grandmother's spare-room smell of good wool. His pyjamas too were linen fresh and bright and his underwear no longer disgraced him.

He looked down at himself. He had been clean last night, and strictly speaking he shouldn't need another shower, but then, _things_ had happened last night and he _was _a little sticky around the midriff. He stepped into the shower, and the tingling which had still felt so alien and unusual when he had entered it last night, felt friendly and comforting, as if it had been irreversibly linked to something wonderful in his mind. Which it had.

He closed his eyes and rolled his head from side to side, enjoying the relaxing quasi-water. Then suddenly received a vigourous poke in his side. It was irritating to be poked when he was so relaxed and contented. Nevertheless, a slight smile escaped his lips as he muttered,

'Don't poke me Ford. I've washed your clothes by the way.'

The poke came for a second time.

'Ow!' said Arthur, and opened his eyes.

Then he staggered back into the wall in shock, before recovering himself as a wave of indignation rushed through him, rallying defences on all sides and drawing him up to his fullest, and not inconsiderable height.

'What are _you_ doing in my shower?' he asked. A lesser being would have quailed under the look it received from Arthur Dent at that moment. An outraged Englishman who has just been apprehended in the shower knows more about dignity than the stuffiest royal who ever ruled on any planet in the entire Galaxy. If his love of cricket had taught Arthur anything, it was how to stand naked in the shower afterwards, and still retain the mien of a gentleman, even when flicked with wet towels or subjected to the hundred and one other sundry inconveniences which it is the purpose of school games lessons to teach their pupils to inflict upon one another.

Such training naturally meant that Arthur, even in his slightly drowsy and incommoded state, was well up to holding his ground before a mattress trader masquerading as an outsize gastropod.

Kelp blinked slowly at him, unfazed by Arthur's cool response,

'You got something of mine. I come over to get it back, only it don't choose to co-operate, see? So I've come to ask you to get it to shift itself on over to my ship.' Arthur's eyebrows nearly hit the ceiling,

'I beg your pardon?! Now look here,' he started to advance on the massive form of the intruder who, to give him credit, did take a couple of wobblingly-hidden steps back, 'I suppose you think that just because you're bigger than us, you can come on board and take whatever you want, but on my planet,' he paused to grab his pyjama top from the shelf next to him and put it on, blissfully unconcerned about the fact that most people would have gone for the benefits of the trousers first, 'We called that 'piracy'.'

He stopped, directly facing Kelp, who was now pressed up against the tiled wall, a small amount of greenish slime running down the tiles behind him. Arthur reached behind him for his underpants and pyjama bottoms, which he drew on as he continued his tirade,

'It is the sort of behaviour we expect only from cowards and low, mendacious wretches with no self-respect or any sort of respect for the property of others and I, for one, will not stand for it.' He pulled the drawstring of his pyjama bottoms savagely and stood inches from the mildly confused trader, his finger out, prodding him in the stomach to punctuate every word,

'That mattress came with us in good faith, and having agreed to let us on board with it, it assumed the same status as ourselves. It was hiking with us. We made that perfectly clear. You cannot,' he prodded the amorphous belly so hard that it rippled and swayed, 'Now claim that it is in any way your property, or indeed that you have any claim to it whatsoever. I don't care what the two-headed gentleman might have said to you, he is really nothing to do with this matter. You have been extremely rude by coming into my bathroom, and I have no intention of making allowances for you just because you exhibit reduced levels of intelligence and social skills. If you would be so good as to leave now, I will say no more about it and you can go on your way...' He was forced to stop by the large, slimy arm, which wrapped itself around his head, while the other one got him by the waist and lifted him bodily off the floor. Arthur raised his hands and pulled at the arm covering his face. He managed to pull it down far enough for him to breath,

'Eugh!' he said, 'Put me down!

'Sorry fellow, no can do. Heh, but you talk enough, don't you?''

'This is absolutely intolerable,' said Arthur in the voice he might once have used to moan at Ford for leaving empty bottles all over his living room, 'Wait! At least bring my dressing gown, I'll get cold.'

'Shoulda thought of that while you was taking your own sweet time getting dressed, shouldn't you?'

'You are hardly in a position to criticise _me_,' returned Arthur, his feet bumping along the floor behind them,

'No? I'd say it was _your_ position that was the worst, but it could be that I'm wrong, let's look shall we?'

He stopped and looked down at Arthur, trapped firmly under his arm,

'No, I'm still pretty sure I got the benefit of you fellow.' Arthur glared at him,

'You will be very sorry for this. If you force me to do something I don't want to I will make life very difficult for you.'

'Oy! And I thought my mother-in-law was hard work... You ever had a mother-in-law, guy?' he asked, more conversationally. Arthur sighed,

'No, I have not yet been afforded that pleasure, nor, given my current circumstances, does it look as if I will ever have one in the future.' Kelp looked down at him, slightly non-plussed,

'You telling me you ain't serious with the curly-headed guy?' Arthur wrinkled his brow,

'What's that got to do with it? Besides, it's none of your business.'

'Sure, sure. But don't he got a mother?'

'Several, from what I've heard...'

They crashed through a door-frame that caught Arthur a glancing blow on the head, and he was unable to continue his sentence, or, indeed, any thoughts at all.

* * *

Ford pursued Zaphod all the way down the corridor to the bridge, where Zaphod flopped into a console chair and regarded Ford shrewdly,

'You've got to do it Ford. I don't mind you freeloading on my ship, but not if you're going to bring extra trouble down on my head. I mean, I just want a quiet life for a while, you know?'

Ford pulled up the chair next to him and sat down,

'Arthur would be bothered by it if we handed it over.'

'Oh Zarquon's stinking laundry! You're not going to be governed by what the ape-man thinks? I mean, that is so un-cool it could fry eggs!'

'For once Zaph, I don't care. He may not be ideal in your eyes, but he's improved a lot since he spent all that time on his own. He's a bit more space-wise, and he's kind of nice to have around, you know?'

'No, I don't know,' said Zaphod, 'Personally I'd be happy to dump him on the nearest habitable planet and get his moaning, whinging backside off my ship. But...' he continued hastily, 'You're my semi-cousin, and however weird you get, you are at least someone to have a drink with and I'll go along with your warped judgement. But I'm not kidding Ford, if the mattress doesn't leave with slug-guts, it leaves with you, pronto.'

Ford considered for a moment: another extended period without a decent alcohol supply loomed in his imagination, so he sat back in his seat looking resigned,

'Where is it?'

'Pretty much where you left it, only it's folded itself down behind the electrics...which is a bit dangerous, what with it being so wet and everything...'

'Can you get it up on the cameras? See what it's up to. I mean, if it's come out, I can probably take it unawares. It sort of trusts me.'

Zaphod yelled across the room,

'Hey! Computer!'

Ford groaned and hid his face in his hands,

'Hi! Eddie the ship board computer here! What's the problem guys? Whatever your problem I ca...'

'Yeah, yeah, just can it, will you?' said Zaphod, wincing, 'Just give us visuals on the Embarkation Area, like now.'

'You got it!' said Eddie, chirpily, and the screen before them brightened to a view of the room in question, where a large, damp, pocket-sprung mattress lay in the middle of the floor, with a very unconscious Arthur Dent sprawled on top of it.

'Zarquon's teeth!' cried Ford as the edge of Kelp's lower body obscured the right-hand side of the mattress. Then he looked across at Zaphod who had just raised his eyebrows in a look of utter scorn. Ford took a steadying breath and removed all traces of mild panic from his face, before looking back at the screen, and watching a very sophisticated special effect carry Kelp, Arthur and the mattress off the ship.

Ford sat back in his chair, his eyes wide, and his hands started to fiddle with the edge of the sheet wrapped around him. He unconsciously pulled the excess up to cover his shoulders, so that the corner came up to wrap around his chin. He chewed thoughtfully on his lip until Zaphod spoke,

'So the chimpanzee has gone off with the mattress huh?' Ford turned his head towards him. He looked utterly calm and even vaguely happy, but if you looked carefully, you could not find the twinkle in his blue eyes.

'Not 'gone off with', Zaph. I think 'been kidnapped' is the term you're looking for.'

'Does it bother you?'

'Why in Zarquon's name should it?' asked Ford, sounding completely unconcerned, 'Still,' he went on, sounding just a little less confident, 'I think I ought to try to rescue him. After all, I brought him off Earth in the first place.

'Right, yeah. Sure Ford. The more you have, the more you want, right?'

'You're not going to stop me are you?'

'Uh, Ford, you're not having my ship to go wandering off on some risky mission to save your monkey.' Ford ignored him and pressed a button on the panel in front of him,

'Trillian?' he called. There was a pause, then Trillian's voice came eerily clearly across the speakers,

'Yes?'

'Can you come up to the bridge, we need to you to mediate something for us,'

'Hey!' broke in Zaphod, but Ford shot him a warning look,

'Can you come now? It's important.'

'Two minutes. I'm just finishing something,' said Trillian and Ford let go of the button.

'Ford...' started Zaphod.

'No. Wait for Trillian.'

'But Ford...'

'No.'

Five minutes later, Trillian appeared on the bridge looking slightly irritated,

'I hope this is important.'

'Of course it's important. Arthur's been kidnapped.'

'Oh no! Who by?' Trillian had the decency to look suitably upset.

'That mattress trader we escaped from. Seems he wanted the mattress back, well, he's taken Arthur with it. I want to go and rescue him, and Zaphod says no way. What do you think?'

Trillian looked at Ford, then at Zaphod,

'Zaphod, you can't abandon Arthur. He's all on his own. We've got one of the best ships in the universe here, we can outrun anything. Let's go after him.'

'I said no. I don't want to get involved.'

'Neither do I,' said Ford, and Trillian looked at him sharply, until she saw the look in his eyes, 'But I'm zarking well going to. I abandoned him once and it made him all...independent, he's only just starting to get over it. I can't risk what might happen to him if I abandon him again.'

'You mean you like him clingy,' stated Zaphod with a smirk. Trillian glared at him,

'That's in very bad taste Zaphod.'

'Sorry baby,' said Zaphod and got up.

'Where are you going?' she asked,

'I'm going to find a drink,' said Zaphod, 'Then I am going to find a nice quiet room to lie down in. Do what you like. Just don't involve me.'

Trillian sighed and watched him leave the bridge,

'Okay, Eddie, plot a course to follow that trader.'

'Yes ma'am!' bubbled the computer, and all around them faint whirrings and bleeping erupted from the control panels.

* * *

Ford closed his eyes. They were gaining on Arthur. The ship ahead of them was fast, but not fast enough. Soon they would catch up. Minutes passed: fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, ten, locked on. The hatchways lined up, the ship-to-ship corridor sprung from the side of the _Heart of Gold_ and Ford was there in seconds, racing down the flimsy link-way. The air-lock at the other end was sealed, so Ford battered on it with his hands and then yelled into the com-link. Kelp would listen, or he would pay. The door slid grudgingly open, and the last five days of tension were a tight ball in Ford's throat. He coughed to relieve it and heard a low call from the other end of the hold. He peered into the darkness and saw the shadowy form of Arthur, sitting imprisoned in a harness, his arms and legs dangling through the straps. Ford hastened forward and broke into a run as he approached the harness. He reached it and watched a watery smile fight the tears of pure relief in Arthur's eyes. Ford found that he couldn't smile, couldn't make any expression appear on his face, but he could reach for Arthur, so he did. As his arms slipped around him and his fingers splayed tightly on his back, he felt Arthur's effort as he struggled to bring his own arms round through the lethargy and discomfort caused by the topical constriction of the harness. Then Arthur's hands were on his back, and Arthur's face was in his neck, and the Galaxy was as small as the circle of their arms, and Ford breathed relieved sobs into Arthur's neck, and ruffled his hair and held him...

He opened his eyes. It was five days since the trader had run off with Arthur and the mattress. It was inconceivable that his clapped out old crate should still evade the _Heart of Gold_, but somehow a combination of an obvious lifetime of evading capture on Kelp's part, and some horrifically bad luck regarding the requirement to shake off other of Zaphod's more tenacious pursuers on theirs, had led to some diverging detours that had put him ahead by several light years. Ford had a pretty good idea where he was headed. A quick search of the sub-ether wave-bands had given him a fairly accurate picture of the present movements of the mattress trader fleets, but it was like Zaphod said: sure, the _Heart of Gold _ could put you down anywhere in the known universe, but you had to know where you wanted to go, and calculate the probabilities of turning up in that particular spot. Trillian had done the maths, with Eddie's help, but with Kelp's erratic movements, there was no telling from which direction he would approach, or whether his current trajectory was worth following at all.

Ford rubbed at his face. He hadn't really slept very much, though he was damned if he was going to admit it. It took all his effort to keep a happy, carefree face on when Zaphod was in the room, but his cooler-than-thou relative was not going to find out what he was really going through. He'd let quite enough slip just to initiate the search successfully. He got up and wandered to the galley for a drink. Furnished with a strong coffee, since Zaphod seemed to be hoarding all the alcohol in his room, whence he absolutely refused to stir, he returned to the bridge and sat back down.

There was blip on the edge of the screen once more. Ford looked at it with burgeoning disinterest, after all, he had seen that same blip appear at least twelve times during the chase, each time choosing a thoroughly unexpected time to disappear once more. Well this time, Ford wasn't going to get his hopes up. He reached down beside him and picked up the _Guide_. Pulling it out of his case he considered what it was he actually wanted to research. No ideas sprang readily to mind, so he changed tack: what would Arthur look up? Now _that_ was easy.

_What to do when a being of whom you are absurdly fond, and with whom you would like to get back into a compromising position as soon as possible, is kidnapped by an irate mattress trader with no legal claim to the property he has ostensibly reclaimed along with said favoured being, and all your best efforts to catch up with him are not succeeding, and your insides feel all wobbly when you think about possibly having lost him for ever._

He checked what his input. Yes, that was what Arthur would ask. Against all the accumulated knowledge of the Galaxy regarding search terms, Arthur would enter that, and he would get results. Ford pushed the button and the _Guide_'s screen flickered,

_Go for the flying with I say you for them always to be extremely well aware of how did you eat that whale you fought what? Thou art in a mess, panic, panic, panic, who did what you thought they did, only it might be better if you were together we can touch the memory of tea, for leaving you behind is the pan galactic equivalent of forty-two ningis to the birds in my ear for good heavens is that the time when the Asgoths of well I thought I had explained it to the fish in my ear to the ground calling GSS Suicidal Insanity is all we need, stop snivelling when you need peanuts doubly so and anyway, I never knew why you liked him so much as to say that when you hold me round the waist and it feels like my soul is about to explode into ash, elm, willow, fifteen of your Earth years before I even knew the atoms fly to be in the sub-ether is to be with my towel and there is no towel, there is no towel, there is no stream we cannot ford, not ford, nor anyone_

Ford dropped the_Guide_ in shock.

* * *

Arthur sat miserably in his little cupboard. Here he was, to all intents and purposes on his own again. He wouldn't exactly call the being who had chosen to incarcerate him thus as 'company', nor did he expect that wherever Kelp chose to put him down, it would be within easy reach of the authorities and/or any form of communications device. He didn't have a copy of the _Guide_, he had no idea where Ford might be found, and he was stuck in a dark hole on his own.

'Ah well, feels familiar,' he said, 'Morning door, morning strut one, morning strut two...' He trailed off. There was an ache deep inside him that didn't feel like the groan of social atrophy he had experienced the last time. He leaned back against the warm metal wall and sighed. This time was different. The last time he had missed Ford, as one misses anything with which one has become familiar, but it had been peaceful, in its own way. Now he missed him specifically. At least, the last time, Ford had been an occasional intruder into his thoughts: an intruder who popped up during those long nights in his cave when Arthur had been trying to visualise well-proportioned young ladies to help him along with a little personal project, and had discovered, with a jolt of something approaching horror, that the face and body he had managed to conjure up was distinctly more Fordish than cover-girlish. Then it had been a slightly disturbing, but acceptable fantasy; one that would never come to pass, and was therefore harmless. It was unfocused, generalised, and bore no link to anything he really knew. This was different. This time he knew exactly what he was missing, and he also knew that, were he not stuck in a dark cupboard, far away from his favourite Betelgeusian, he would be getting what he wanted. The thought did not make him feel any better and he slumped even further down the wall, letting his knees fall to the sides, until they hit the walls on either side of him. His mind was swimming, disjointed thoughts flooded through him. Everything he had learnt since Ford had rescued him from the Earth mingled in a flood of miserable remembrance. He reached to pull his dressing gown around him, then remembered he didn't have it. If only he had his towel; but his towel was in his dressing gown pocket, and his dressing gown was in the bathroom on the _Heart of Gold_, which was a very long way away.

* * *

_What will happen to Arthur? Will Ford be able to catch up with him? What has happened to the _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ to make it talk such rubbish? A night spent wrapped up in a sheet with Ford or Arthur to anyone who reviews _;-D 


	12. Reunion

_A/N: I know, I know...I'm sorry, this chapter took an age to get written. I came back to it tonight and found pages and pages of what amounted to random notes - it was a bit like finding half of every chapter of _The Salmon of Doubt_ (although obviously not quite like that) and trying to make them into a coherent, well plotted, single chapter. Anyway, I think I managed it. Many thanks to murderofonerose for poking me repeatedly to get on with it :) As per usual, didn't manage to get them into bed when I wanted to, but they can't really avoid it next time ;D_

* * *

**Chapter 12 - Reunion  
**

Ford retrieved the _Guide _from his lap and looked at the screen again. Then he banged it on the side of the chair and looked at it again.

'Zarking thing...' he muttered, not really sure why his eyes were suddenly full of moisture that threatened to overflow if he wasn't very careful. He brought the _Guide_ up so that it was above eye-level and he didn't have to look down. Yep. No doubt about it. That stream of consciousness burbling its way across the screen had the ring of Arthur about it. But that meant...

'The _Guide _is updated from the editorial revisions of a load of hitchhikers who send in their copy, or hack into the system, or wander along to the offices to mess around with the computers and see if they can't get some work done while the real editors are out,' thought Ford, 'So why is this copy apparently tapping into Arthur's mind? That simply isn't possible.

'Besides which, if that's what Arthur's thinking, it's not good. I mean, I know humans talk all the time, so maybe it's like that inside their heads too, and they just rattle on to themselves without making much sense...that would figure...but he sounds...upset. Scared. Oh Belgium.'

* * *

Arthur was hungry. The pseudo-pizza he had eaten prior to the exertions of last night had very definitely run out, and so far, Kelp had not offered him anything in the way of nourishment. Put simply, Arthur wasn't having it. He banged on what he assumed was the door of his small prison,

'Excuse me!' he called, 'I'm getting very hungry in here.'

There was no response. He hitched his eyebrows irritably,

'I think you'll find that you are obliged to provide me with the basic necessities, whatever your plans may be. After all, it's one thing to wrongfully imprison me, quite another to starve me to death. Excuse me! Excuse me!' he called again.

He could hear Kelp moving around outside. He had to be able to hear him. He tried again,

'Look, I don't know about your species, but I am a human. Humans come from the planet earth, we are generally omnivorous primates, which means we are mammals who maintain a constant core body temperature by the use of homeostatic regulators...' he fished around in his brain for what leftover scrapings he retained of O level biology, 'This means that I am using quite a lot of energy to keep warm in this chilly little hole in which you have placed me, and I require nutritious food to convert into energy which can be used for heating and other organic processes...speaking of which, it would be a decent thing to do if you would provide me with some sort of lavatory.'

The little door opened and Kelp's enormous belly filled the visible space. He thrust a small plastic container towards Arthur and grunted. Arthur folded his arms,

'Oh no. Definitely not. I refuse to answer the call of nature into a little plastic pot, when I am sure you have perfectly adequate facilities on board.'

He pushed himself forward and attempted to get out of the cupboard. Kelp's flabby hand reached down and tossed him back into the little hole. Arthur's blood boiled,

'Right. That's it. I've had enough.'

He placed his hands on the edge of the opening and pulled himself out. The hand pushed again, but this time he was ready. He clung to the outside of the opening like grim death, until he was standing face to face with the slug-man. Kelp seemed to be a little fazed by the unexpected resistance he had met with from this puny little being. Arthur prodded him in the chest again,

'Better behaviour on your part would not go amiss,' he said, as if he were talking to a small boy he'd caught ringing his doorbell and running away. Unfortunately, Kelp reacted like a large boy with exceptionally poor upbringing. His fist came up and he clouted Arthur on the right side of his head. The Babel fish shot out of his ear and skittered across the floor.

'I see,' said Arthur, though he didn't. His ears rang with the after effects of the punch, and his brain was in the process of letting him know that, when he had a moment, it was going to have a headache. This knowledge did not improve his temper.

'I am going to look for my fish now, and you, whether you like it or not, are going to turn this ship around and take me back to my friends.'

He spoke very loudly and slowly, although it seemed that Kelp still understood him...of course, he would, it was Arthur's comprehension that had suffered. Kelp laughed a blisteringly humourless laugh and pushed Arthur in the chest again, sending him flying across the room, onto the soft, squelchy form of the live mattress in the corner.

'Hingvrech, Ch'estrong jvanchiach, lon t'thei'ah, ch, ch,' said Kelp.

'Well, quite,' said Arthur, starting to feel a little silly now that he couldn't understand a word his captor was saying. It was one thing to know that an Italian was saying something rude to you that you couldn't quite make out, quite another for a slug-like alien to insult you without your comprehending it. For one thing, from a thin knowledge of Italian, and indeed human, culture, you could make a stab at working out at least what the gist was likely to be. There were no clues here, just mounds of greenish flesh and a lot of soggy gutturals.

In addition to his lack of comprehension, Arthur was finding it increasingly difficult to retain his dignity, due to the fact that the mattress, having worked out who had fallen on it, was wrapping itself around him, in a tight protective coil, crooning to him all the time what might possibly have been words, if only he could have found his babel fish. He struggled for a minute or so, while Kelp looked on, hands on hips, with what might have been amusement, but the mattress was big and soggily heavy and he gave up and let its smelly dampness enfold him. In his mind, images of a pleasant reunion with Ford went sauntering out of the window, and new concerns started to invade. What if the mattress wouldn't let him go, and Kelp was forced to hand him over with it? With no way of knowing what the mattress said any more, would he, Arthur, be able to explain to it the severity of his plight? Would he be forced to go with it to the abode of its purchaser and witness the acts that had caused even the monstrous Kelp to have second thoughts? Would he in fact be obliged to join in? And on which side? The mattress' or the abuser's?

There was a distant 'thunk', as of a strong electro-magnet getting a grip on the battered roof of a scrapped car. In a normal on-board situation, it might have been expected that somebody would at least ask the computer if it had heard anything. After all, heavy metallic 'thunks' are rarely birds of good omen on a space ship. However, both Arthur and Kelp were rather preoccupied at the time of this particular 'thunk', Arthur's ears were filling up with swamp water, and Kelp was standing before him, making unpleasant noises and prodding the mattress with something resembling a foot, so they both ignored it.

* * *

Ford came up silently behind Kelp and Arthur tried to squint round to see him without Kelp noticing. Ford had his towel. No-one would ever accuse Ford of being unprepared.

Without warning, he flicked the towel at the mass of flesh below Kelp's head, which Arthur supposed was his neck, Kelp howled and whipped around... or at least swung his mass around with a swaying, circular motion that allowed his belly to catch up with the rest of him about five seconds later. He stepped back when he saw Ford, and Arthur withdrew into the mattress as the edge of Kelp's foot crushed the reinforced edging and tore the binding away from the top edge.

Ford was furious. Kelp, too, seemed consumed with rage, but his expression changed when he saw Ford, as if he couldn't hold onto his rage at the same time as he experienced the utter confusion caused by being confronted by an horrifically calm-looking humanoid who obviously seethed below the surface and who was, inescapably, clad only in a pale blue bed sheet tied at the waist and shoulder to make a sort of toga. The moment of confusion was enough for Ford. With a deft movement which had taken years of study under fairly drunk towel-masters to achieve, he wrapped the towel in a figure-of-eight under Kelp's armpits, pinning his hands behind his back and using his own weight, thrown off balance by the loss of his arms, to send him crashing to the floor.

The room reverberated to the thud of Kelp's enormous mass hitting the deck, and once it had stopped vibrating, Kelp lay perfectly still.

'He'll be out for a while,' said Ford, disentangling his towel and using it to wipe his hands. 'You can come out now.'

The mattress heard him and relaxed itself, allowing Arthur to sit up and get awkwardly to his feet.

* * *

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the subject of reunions:

_There are basically two types of reunion. There is the one where both parties are ecstatic to see each other, or at least very well able to fake their ecstasy, because they know that their parting has wiped the slate clean and all the disagreements, disgruntlements and general awkwardnesses of lives that rub up against one-another, will be fresh and new and therefore interesting and enjoyable in their own way. The usual method of enacting this first type of reunion is to run, crying the other person's name or at least bellowing an incoherent greeting, and throw your arms about each other in a manner which more or less reduces the pair of you to a struggling heap. In the case of a sexually or dubiously platonically linked couple, such a reunion can be erotically satisfying and lead on to Greater Things._

_The other sort is less convivial. This tends to occur when one or both of the parties involved is aware that there are Matters Outstanding between them, these might even be matters which, in the normal course of affairs, would not have mattered a jot, but which, through separation and the strain of continually thinking them through without anyone to accost over them, have grown to megalithic proportions and are now the proverbial elephant in the moderately sized master bedroom. The second type are to be avoided at all costs. Unfortunately, they are very difficult to foresee, and by the time you have spotted them, it is usually too late. Accepted procedure is to walk briskly towards each other, to a distance of roughly three yards, then reduce pace to an embarrassed shuffle. During the extra time this will give you before the actual meeting, you may wish to consider the ways in which a greeting might be achieved, the proffered then withdrawn hand, the uncertain nodding of the head, and the opened arms disguised as a stretch at the last moment are all popular choices. Do not allow anyone else present in the room to distract you from your task. It is your purpose to shrug off your humiliation with as much dignity as possible. The standard climax to this reunion is a jerky movement of arms in close proximity to one another, followed by an awkward handshake and an aversion of the eyes. You may, if you feel so inclined, wish to follow this up with severe clearings of the throat, comments on the lack of decent anomalies in the space-time wash, or information about any friend or family member with whom the other person is guaranteed never to have come into contact. If you are a sexually or dubiously platonically linked couple, do not despair: this sort of reunion does not preclude sex._

* * *

Arthur and Ford were spared the long walk towards each other due to the fact that by the time Arthur was fully upright, he was barely two feet away from Ford. They stood opposite each other, both attempting, in their own way, to find a decent solution to the silent disaster of a reunion fermenting between them into a beast of insurmountable proportions.

They had both feinted at each other with open palms and wide arms which all converted seamlessly into yawns, stretches and vague gestures of appreciation of the appalling interior décor. Now Arthur's mouth was working hard. He had tried ten or twelve possible lines of thanks without success before he decided to shut it and carry on the whole process internally. Ford, meanwhile, was wondering how in Zark's name he could get Arthur from here to the bedroom without having to listen to a lecture on being abandoned or something equally unfair. It was clear that some sort of lecture was in the offing. Arthur was never going to believe that he hadn't just sat on his hands for the last five days. Nothing was occurring to him, however, until he noticed that Arthur was unconsciously rubbing his left ear.

'Hurt your ear?' he said, knowing that Arthur like that sort of thing.

'Not really,' said Arthur, thankful that, at last, he could say something, 'That _thing_ knocked my babel fish out. Couldn't understand a word he was saying just now.'

'I don't see it,' Ford muttered, giving a half-hearted look around the floor, 'It's probably wriggled under the service plates. Here, have my fish, I sort of know his language anyway, if he wakes up.'

Ford poked around in his ear and pulled out the little yellow fish. He waved it at Arthur, who wrinkled his nose,

'Ford, that thing's been in your ear. I mean, I don't like the idea at the best of times...'

Ford gave an irritated little huff as his eyes scanned the floor again for Arthur's fish,

'Well, I can't see yours. For zark's sake, just bung it down your ear and stop griping.' Arthur's eyebrows shot up in surprise, and in his moment of abstraction, Ford grabbed him by the hair and jammed the fish into his ear.

The look on Arthur's face was the one he would usually have reserved for occasions when, walking barefoot along the beach or other natural space, an unpleasant squelchy feeling underfoot alerted him to the fact that he was going to have to find a foot-washing facility before he could hope to put his shoes back on. Ford ignored it.

Arthur let the unpleasant feeling subside, while he gazed at Ford uncomfortably. Having made it past the first hurdle of speaking to each other, he still didn't know how to deal with the situation. They were, to all intents and purposes, alone. They could do whatever they wanted. Arthur put out his hand,

'Thanks for rescuing me...' he said, his words tailing off. Ford nodded vaguely and took the hand and shook it. He gripped it as if he wanted to pull Arthur into a hug, but his arm vetoed the move and he let go a couple of seconds later so that they stood awkwardly facing each other. There seemed to be...objections to either of them doing anything. Ford scratched his head. Then he reached out and patted Arthur tentatively on the shoulder. It looked like he had somehow forestalled the Lecture. He motioned at the door,

'Shall we get out of here before our charming host wakes up?' He moved to start off, but Arthur dawdled, fiddling with the hem of his pyjamas. Ford looked back at him, confused,

'Are you coming, Arthur?'

'I sort of hoped...I mean I thought when you rescued me...eventually,' he added with a touch of irritation hovering over his words, 'I thought we'd, you know...I mean, we slept together and...'

'Oh, Arthur!' Ford groaned, not bothering to control his own irritation, 'This isn't ideal. It's not like you tried any more than...I would have, but you didn't... I didn't want to rush...'

'No, Ford. I see how it is.' Arthur interrupted, 'You obviously made a mistake before and now you're embarrassed and you don't know how to tell me. Well, that's understandable. Believe me, I'd find it awkward myself.'

'Arthur, be quiet. It's not that at all.'

'It isn't?' Arthur's voice was querulous, but a faint note of hope had crept stealthily into it against his will.

'No. I just wanted to know if...if you were all right. I mean, you were sort of...well, kidnapped. And I didn't want to...if you got hurt or...or something...I mean...I guess you'd tell me, right? Or...' Ford seemed to be utterly incapable of articulating his thoughts. Arthur fancied that this might be related to the fact that it sounded as if Ford actually cared what had happened to him. It occurred to him that this would be such a wildly original state of affairs for Ford's brain that it might not really know what to do with itself. He tried to help it out.

'I'm fine. He just knocked me out by accident, then locked me in a cupboard until I raised such merry hell that he was forced to let me out.'

Ford sniggered, against his better judgement,

'You talked him into letting you out?'

Arthur drew himself up, feeling rather proud,

'I simply made him see that he was in the wrong and that I could, quite easily, bring the unions down on him if necessary...Of course, I was on shaky ground with that, I don't really know what sort of power, if any, the unions have out here, I haven't had time to go and request the appropriate citizens' advice leaflets yet. But I've dealt with enough official idiots to know that...'

He was compelled to stop, because Ford's lips were on his, pressing their shape into his consciousness. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, Ford's were looking straight back at him. His knees sagged, and the pressure of Ford's lips was gone as he grabbed him under the arms and held him upright,

'Okay?'

Arthur nodded.

* * *

They emerged into the _Heart of Gold_ with the mattress flolloping wearily along behind them. They left it in the corridor where it oozed gently onto the floor, and then headed along to the galley. If there was one thing Arthur needed, it was food. They stopped at the door – Zaphod sat with his back to them, almost exactly as he had when they had come aboard six days ago. This time, however, he got up to greet them,

'You got him then?' he asked, unnecessarily. Ford nodded,

'We've come to get some food, Arthur's hungry.' Zaphod shrugged and stared at them shamelessly. Ford could feel Arthur starting to heat up next to him. He put a warning hand on his arm: Zaphod was being deliberately provocative and he knew it. The hand wasn't working. Arthur was going to say something in a moment that would send Zaphod off in a huff and make life unpleasant for the next few days. Ford made a decision.

Sidling closer to Arthur so that their hips were bumping together, he swiftly slid his hand under Arthur's pyjama top, then swooped it down into his bottoms. Letting his fingers trail between Arthur's suddenly rock-solid buttocks and feeling the involuntary spasm running through him, Ford grinned,

'Okay Zaph?' he asked perkily. Arthur yelped as Ford's finger tickled a sensitive spot, but he could no longer hope to say anything coherent. Zaphod narrowed three eyes at them and backed up against the wall, settling himself against it with a heavy finality that told them they could get food, but they'd better not expect him to help them out. Something that looked vaguely like jealousy hung in a cloud over his two shaggy-haired heads.

Ford withdrew his hand, shot Arthur a severe warning look and went across to the sens-o-matic. Arthur's record with the machine wasn't too good, so Ford preferred to order the food himself. He stepped away from it a few moments later with two bowls of something hot, and a cheerful 'Thank-you for using this Sirius Cybernetics Corporation product. Share and enjoy!' ringing in his ears. He shouldered his way past Zaphod, jerking a hip at him and causing one of the bowls he held to slop some of its contents onto the floor.

''Night Zaph,' he called back as he handed Arthur one of the bowls and grabbed his other wrist, dragging him out of the room.

'Wait!' called Zaphod after them, in a voice that was trying to work out how to do cool and desperate at the same time

'Is it important Zaphod?' Ford asked, jerking to a halt just outside the door, still clutching Arthur by the wrist, twisting himself around to look at the two heads regarding him with as much scorn as any being (with the possible exception of the Uppalpha Sark of Loki 4, an incredibly haughty creature, capable of making fully fledged vengeful gods feel a little small and insignificant with a single look, despite the fact the the Uppalpha Sark is, in itself, very little more than a largish bag of cytoplasm and a smallish brain,) could manage without dislocating their facial features.

'Hey! We're just in fairly substantial danger of being shot out of the Galaxy by your slimy friend, and that zarking mattress is back on my ship, along with your under-evolved friend, who just happens to make my heads ache whenever he starts talking...if that _is _talking, but otherwise, no...' Ford let go of Arthur's wrist, thrust his bowl at him and stalked over to Zaphod, yanking his sheets more firmly about him. He took hold of Zaphod's lapels and brought his face very close to Zaphod's left head. Arthur couldn't quite make out what Ford was muttering, but the expression on Zaphod's face slowly softened to a comprehending sort of sneer, and he relaxed as Ford let go of him and took a step back,

'Okay?' he asked dangerously,

'Sure baby, whatever you say,' Zaphod replied.

Ford returned to Arthur, took his bowl and put out his hand,

'Come on Arthur.'

'What did you just say to him?' Arthur asked, resolutely refusing to join his own hand with Ford's.

Ford looked a little shifty,

'Nothing Arthur. I just told him to lay off.'

Arthur frowned,

'That's not what it looked like.'

'So what _did_ it look like?'

'I don't know. Not that. Come on Ford, I've had a hell of a day and I'm not up for guessing games.'

Ford rubbed his nose and shrugged,

'Honestly Arthur, it's not important.' He glanced back over his shoulder at Zaphod, who was leaning nonchalantly against the wall and watching them with a pair of slight smiles which, from Arthur's point of view, looked extremely dangerous.

'Please?' he asked, waving his proffered hand at Arthur. Arthur looked unconvinced, but the promise of Ford's hand, linked as it was to Ford's arm and thence to Ford's torso and...well, to other bits of Ford worth knowing about, was too much, and he allowed his own hand to come up into Ford's range.

Ford's fingers laced through his and a surge of unlooked-for satisfaction washed through him, making a very slightly unwelcome sheepish grin plaster itself across his face. After all, holding hands with a friendly and sexually everso-minorly-predatory being who makes your stomach do happy little flips when you see him, whether you want it to or not, is infinitely more attractive to the human mind than being imprisoned in a cupboard on a cargo freighter, speeding away from the only people in the galaxy you can truly say you know, with only a damp mattress and a giant slug for company. As Ford tugged on his hand, he let himself be led away.

He expected them to go straight to a cabin, after all, that seemed to be the most pressing requirement. So he was a little put out when Ford pulled him in the opposite direction. He spluttered something to that effect as Ford dragged him, ever faster down the corridor, but Ford ignored him and only stopped when they were safely inside a store room near the bridge.

'Found Zaphod's main stash,' he said happily, a look of longing on his face. He let go of Arthur's hand, passed him his bowl and went to a locker for a rummage. Arthur rubbed his hand where Ford had actually been gripping rather hard and searched for a lightly quizzical tone he could use without Ford getting all hot and bothered about his questions. He found one he thought might do, and used it,

'Ford, do you really, seriously need another drink?'

Ford stopped his rummaging and looked up at Arthur, uncertainty clear upon his features,

'Yes...' he said, as if he wasn't sure whether or not this was the correct answer. Arthur spent a moment regrouping, before asking,

'Why?'

Ford made a triumphant sort of noise in the depths of the locker, and rose to his feet, a tiny little miniature full of something or other clutched in his fist,

'Because,' he said, facing Arthur at a distance that was not quite big enough to hide his heavyish breathing and the sparkling impatience in his eyes, 'I have also had a bloody awful day or five, and now that they are over, I need to calm down a bit...before Zaph thinks I've totally lost it.'

'_You've _had an awful time?' squawked Arthur, rising onto tiptoe to get the greatest effect from the first word. He was about to explain about cupboards and slugs and travelling on your own in the wrong direction, but Ford butted in, taking the cap off his little bottle and sniffing it from a safe distance,

'Arthur,' he said, through the end of swallowing a mouthful, which made the second syllable come out in a rather curtailed and breathy fashion, 'Don't you think that maybe I was just the tiniest bit concerned about you...' he turned away, raising the bottle to his lips once more.

Arthur stared. Ford Prefect: concerned? About him? The only concerns he had ever heard expressed by this particular alien were, 'where will we find a drink' 'how can we get away from these creditors with all our limbs intact?' and 'what time does the pub open?' Self preservation and self gratification really were the watchwords when it came to Ford's levels of actual concern.

'You were worried about me?'

'I didn't say worried,' said Ford quickly, still not looking at Arthur, 'I said concerned...different thing.'

'No it isn't,' said Arthur firmly.

Ford. put the bottle down and decided to try for innocent and misunderstood rather than attempting to fight his corner. He pulled the ends of his sheet out to re-wrap himself, and yawned extravagantly.

'Now that is something I could have done without seeing,' said a female voice from the doorway. Arthur looked around. Trillian stood there with her hand theatrically placed over her eyes, a look of mild disgust on what could be seen of her face. She shook her head,

'Now that Arthur's safely back and you take the time out and think straight, would you mind putting some real clothes on if you're going to wander around the ship?'

Ford glared at her, pulling his sheet back around himself to recover his dignity. She took her hand down, tentatively opened her eyes, nodded and asked, rather sarcastically,

'Do you think it might be a good idea if one of us went and asked this ship to beat a hasty retreat?' Ford missed the sarcasm completely and nodded. She started to say something cutting, changed her mind, sighed and left the room.

Ford turned his glare on Arthur, seemingly daring him to notice Trillian's comment. Arthur decided to accept the dare, after all, his day couldn't conceivably get much worse, and it _had_ been an interesting comment.

'Really Ford? Is that why you're dressed in that ridiculous sheet?'

'We were busy. We were being chased by some of Zaphod's other sort of friend.'

'Five days, being chased in a practically fully automated ship and you couldn't find time to change?' Ford started picking at the hem of the sheet and chose to ignore Arthur for the time being.

'I even washed your clothes for you,' said Arthur, trying to make himself sound hurt, which he wasn't. The idea that Ford had been even slightly worried about him was enough to make his brain whirl off in spirals of satisfaction and pleasure. Ford turned and looked at him,

'Did you?' he asked. Arthur nodded,

'And folded them.'

'Oh,' said Ford. Then because it seemed like he needed to salvage at least a little of his statement from the wreckage, he added,

'You know, the only reason I couldn't think straight was that I was trying to think like you...' he tailed off as he realised that although this was, partially true, it didn't sound snide and insulting as he had intended. It sounded pleasant and loving and a little bit like he actually felt. He frowned to cover his mistake and made for the door. Arthur blinked a couple of times, found it didn't help, and rushed after him.

They padded down the corridor, Arthur doing a sort of half-skipping jog to keep up with Ford, who, for all that he had the shorter legs, was striding at an impossible pace towards the sleeping cabins. The bowls in Arthur's hands slopped more of their contents over him and the floor as he raced after Ford's blue-sheeted form and followed him back into the cabin where Ford's clothes lay in a neatly folded pile on the bed, and Arthur's lay in a messy heap in the bathroom.

The door closed behind them, and Arthur looked down mournfully at the meagre portions left in the bowls.

'Sorry,' he said, sitting in the chair and pulling it nearer to the bed. Ford took one bowl, containing approximately half an inch of brownish stew-sauce and poured it into the other bowl, still clutched in Arthur's hand. This bowl now contained about two inches of stew-sauce, dotted with chunks of something that had probably once belonged on the inside of an animal of some sort.

'You have it,' said Ford, 'I'm not hungry.' His stomach rumbled mightily as he said this, but he looked steadily at Arthur and pushed the bowl at him. Arthur was about to protest, when he realised that he was hungry enough to eat his dressing gown, so he ate the half-bowl without another word.

Ford sat on the edge of the bed and was untying the knots in his bed-sheet toga. He looked at the neat pile of clothes, then up at Arthur, and a fond sort of look he'd never have allowed to show if Arthur hadn't been so focused on his food, passed over his face. He grabbed the pile and slung it without malice onto the bedside table, where it unfolded and his sweater slid to the floor. Arthur looked up and his eyebrows did a little dance of uncertainty. He wasn't sure whether to be annoyed at the destruction of his work, but when he looked at Ford, kneeling naked in the middle of the bed, he decided he wouldn't be. Ford's expression said 'hurry up.' It also said 'please hurry up' and, unmistakably, 'I want you.'

Arthur put the bowl down on the floor and looked at Ford. His brain went into overload. How the hell could he get from the chair into the bed without making himself look like an overeager fool or a rheumatic monkey, which, according to the muscular data he was receiving just now, seemed to be his only two options.

He held out a hand, not really sure what he was going to do with it. Ford shuffled towards him on the bed and took it. He pulled Arthur towards him and slid a hand up round the back of his neck. He kissed him, licking away the minute traces of stew from the corners of his mouth and dragging Arthur forward onto the bed, until Ford was lying on his back, his feet framing his hips where he was still kneeling, and Arthur, helpless and careless on top of him.

* * *

_Will the _Heart of Gold_ manage to give Kelp the slip this time? Will the mattress recover? Will Arthur? What exactly _did_ Ford say that made Zaphod look so much more cheerful? Repeated prodding seems to do the trick, update-wise, but any reviews, even non-proddy ones, gratefully received :)_


	13. Rock and Roll

_Look! Speedy!_

**Chapter 13 – Rock and Roll**

A small part of Arthur's brain, namely the part that had not yet headed south, wondered just how it was that something it was so easy to go without for days on end...given the correct circumstances... could suddenly become so necessary, so important, so...urgent. And it was urgency. That feeling that constricted his chest so much it felt like he was crying. Except, he wasn't crying. He definitely wasn't crying. He was smiling, as far as he could smile with an open mouth that seemed to have a will of its own and was emitting little gasps as Ford kissed his way around it and back into Arthur's hair.

Ford rolled him over, muttering,

'Too heavy, Arthur.' Though he didn't seem to actually mind very much.

He was vaguely aware that Ford was fiddling with his pyjama buttons, planting rough, careless kisses on his chin, mouth, or whatever part of him his wild stabs happened to hit at random. It was clear that 'urgency' was very much the watchword for Ford too. Arthur let his own hands wander. It felt rebellious and thrilling to be mostly dressed when Ford was so thoroughly and pleasingly naked...

'Voyeuristic,' said the last bastion of comprehension in his brain, but perhaps even that part of his grey matter wasn't really all there, because voyeurism this was not. That suggested that he had his eyes open. Which he didn't. His hands were doing all his seeing for him. They rubbed flat-palmed down Ford's side, bumping down over the ribs and skimming lightly over the soft flesh below, so that Ford gasped against his Adam's apple and Arthur felt a new wash of pleasure run through him because _he_ had done that to Ford. He was still writhing under his touch as he dug fingers into Ford's hair and reached down to find out just how well one of Ford's buttocks would shape itself into his splayed fingers. Ford lost his grip on a button and his hand skittered across Arthur's chest, his thumbnail dragging across Arthur's right nipple, causing him to let out a small cry, a sound he was almost completely certain he had never made during sex with anyone before. Ford lifted his head slightly, though his laboured breathing seemed to suggest that this was almost more than he could manage, and growled,

'Arthur, will you stay still? I'm going to do you a mischief in a minute.' Arthur opened his eyes and tried to bring Ford into focus. All he could see was a pair of blue, blue eyes, looking up at him past his nose. He decided it wasn't worth the effort to get anything else in focus. Ford looked as if he was trying to be angry, but he wasn't succeeding. His eyes twinkled like the very best stars. The ones you see when you look up on a starry night when you're walking in the warm summer air with someone by your side, and you're in love. Arthur felt his hand slip across Ford's back, so that he held him warmly to his chest and teased at the soft, sweetly damp hair under Ford's arm. Then he said,

'Well you should have cut your nails.'

Ford glared at him,

'I've chewed the zarking things off, thanks to you. It's not them that're the problem.'

'Oh!' said Arthur, which was the best his absent brain could come up with in the circumstances. When he had a moment, and a little more blood flowing to his thought centres, he would remember that he had had an admission from Ford that he had been worried. Worried enough to chew off his fingernails. Worried enough to let this information bypass his careful mask of cool and slip out in this wholly unexpected revelation.

Ford didn't seem unduly bothered by Arthur's reaction. If anything, he appeared relieved. It was clear that he hadn't meant that to come out the way it had, and if Arthur was willing to let it pass with nothing more than a little 'oh!', then Ford was not going to complain. He forestalled any potential elaboration on Arthur's point by returning his attention to Arthur's mouth and kissing him soundly, while his hands set to work easing the pyjama sleeves down Arthur's arms.

Arthur wriggled: an attempt to assist with his de-robing that turned out to be considerably more of a hindrance. Ford sat up, bringing Arthur with him, as he wasn't particularly anxious to end the kiss at this point, and mumbled into his mouth,

'Stop fidgeting!'

Arthur would have made a coherent protest about how he was trying to help, and how it wasn't his fault if Ford was incompetent when it came to removing pyjama tops. However, his mouth was full of Ford and he didn't care to remedy that situation, so he kept quiet and did as he was told.

It felt so good to sit there, chest to chest, with Ford's thighs burning hot through the thin cotton of his pyjama bottoms, that Arthur barely noticed when the whole ship rocked and threw them back onto the bed. The soft pillows cushioned their fall, avoiding the potential for split lips and bitten tongues that had been evident in their descent. Ford grunted with irritation. He was damned if he was going to let a bit of hasty manoeuvring spoil his evening. He braced himself around Arthur, who, he noticed, seemed utterly oblivious to the severe rocking they had just received, and waited for the next roll of the ship. After all, if there was something out there that necessitated their swerving violently once, surely it would not be shaken off so easily that a second roll would be unnecessary?

He tried to concentrate, to anticipate the next motion, to give himself time to pull back so that he wouldn't head-butt Arthur or have his own tongue surgically removed in the next movement of the ship. It was very difficult to concentrate, however, with Arthur holding him so tightly he could feel his heart beating, and with the bulge in Arthur's trousers throbbing against his leg in a counterpoint to his own, unfettered specimen. He tried to force concentration by watching the flicker of Arthur's pupils behind his lowered eyelids, but it made him go cross-eyed, trying to focus on something so close, and besides, the little pleasurable whimpers leaking out of Arthur's mouth whenever it unsealed slightly from his own, and the way Arthur's fingers were kneading the muscles of his back and smoothing the convex planes at the sides of his bottom were extremely distracting.

Something in Ford's subconscious picked up the change in pitch of the engines just in time for him to disengage himself somewhat from Arthur and grab onto the sheets so that they were only thrown half-way off the bed by the next, extravagant change of direction.

Arthur opened his eyes,

'D'you think we ought to...' he asked, his eyes pleading with Ford to say 'no.'

'Nah,' said Ford, 'They've obviously got it covered.'

Keeping a firm grip on the sheets with one hand, just in case, Ford returned to his original position, now nosing his way along Arthur's neck again, smelling the special, faint, Arthur-smell that originated in his hair and was like breathing important dust and summer fruits. He slipped his hand down Arthur's bare, slightly moist now, stomach, and under the waist band of the pyjama bottoms. Leaning to one side, he allowed himself the luxury of a sedate grope, an unhurried exploration of the solid, hopeful flesh that Arthur kept in there. He did not want to do anything right now that might be injurious to either of their health if the ship made another over-enthusiastic course change.

Arthur whimpered again. A sedate grope was a very pleasant prospect in its own way, at the right time, but just now he needed something a little more immediate. He strained up at Ford, trying to urge him into more useful action. Ford leaned his weight on him and grinned into the hollow behind his ear,

'The ship's not exactly cruising dead-ahead, is it Arthur?' he said softly, 'You wouldn't want me to bite anything important when it moves again, would you?'

Arthur forgot to shake his head. The question suggested that Ford was intending to...to...on him...which would be...which would be... very, very nice. He hadn't considered up to this point what exactly they were going to _do_. The last time had been fun, it had been friendly and impressively well co-ordinated. It was clear that Ford knew what he was doing, which didn't bother Arthur as much as he would have thought it might. But that was the easy way to do the thing. The way that meant it could be anybody. That didn't involve the sort of contact that you didn't get by happening to rub up against somebody...in the nude...quite vigourously...

The point was that the sort of contact that had involved was the kind that you can laugh off afterwards, even though they hadn't, because it's about those bits of yourself that really don't do what you tell them to, but which have a will of their own and will satisfy it, whether you like it or not. What Ford seemed to be suggesting was the sort of thing that didn't happen by accident because you get so far and then can't stop. In fact, it involved one person accepting a delay in their gratification, because no matter how much they might enjoy giving pleasure to the person they were with, it wasn't the same as getting yourself seen to at the same time, (and Arthur didn't feel he was really athletic enough for anything like _that._)

So Arthur didn't shake his head, he just ran one hand through Ford's hair and the other down the enticing valley at the base of his spine, and tried to think himself away from the barely pleasant torture Ford was perpetrating upon him.

The ship rolled violently once more, but Ford's grip on the sheets pinned them to the bed. He took a heavy breath into Arthur's neck as Arthur's fingers were pushed rather more between his buttocks than he had intended, and touched on sensitive areas of flesh that Ford would have liked some warning about before they were prodded quite so forcefully.

'Thank-you for making a simple door very happy!' said the door. Ford looked up and around at it as Arthur froze beneath him.

Zaphod stormed in and stood unashamedly close to them, something of which Arthur, through a fog of panic, considered he was making rather too much of a habit.

'Okay, so Trill and I are up on the bridge, saving our backsides in daring feats of bravado and really cool flying, and you're in here doing the wild thing, not even watching. You don't think, maybe you want to come and give us a hand?' Ford looked up, annoyance plastered across his features as if the possible destruction of the ship was in no way something that should be allowed to interrupt his not-so-quiet time with Arthur.

'So it's a bit rough. What do you want me to do about it? I can't fly this thing. Come to that, neither can you...'

'At least I'm trying. Trillian's got a few moves she's trying out...'

'Yes, we felt them,' interrupted Arthur, his overall unpleasant feelings about Zaphod cancelling out his embarrassment at their position for long enough for him to give this comment a fine sarcastic edge...which Zaphod entirely failed to spot.

'...But we could do with another pair of eyes on the bridge,' Zaphod finished, completely ignoring Arthur.

He grabbed Ford's arm and heaved. Ford grumbled and resisted feebly, but it seemed he could not entirely resist his semi-cousin when he was this annoyed. He shook himself free of Zaphod's grasp as he sat on the edge of the bed,

'This time,' he said, 'I am getting dressed. Come on Arthur, put some clothes on. The sooner we get this sorted, the sooner we can get back here and finish what we started... Oh Zarquon...' he muttered as he realised that what they had started was still very much in the forefront for both of them, and getting his trousers done up was going to be a major achievement. Arthur was in a better position with his looser garments, but nevertheless,

'Bridge, one minute,' said Zaphod, obviously getting bored and leaving them to it.

Arthur was shaking slightly, adrenaline still pumping through him, and he could barely stand for the growing, aching discomfort between his legs. He really, really needed to do something about that. It was okay for Ford. All right, he was inconvenienced in the same way superficially, but he hadn't just been mercilessly teased to the point of distraction.

As the ship rocked again, then regained its equilibrium, two figures walked, slightly bent over, with awkward, painful looking steps, up to the bridge.

* * *

_Are Trillian's tactics working? Will Ford and Arthur actually make it to the bridge, and if they do, how long are they going to be forced to stay there with so many more pressing things to do? Will whatever Ford said to Zaphod still hold after this little contretemps? Reviews oil my brain XD_


	14. Four at Bridge

**Chapter 14 - Four at Bridge  
**

Part-way down the corridor, Arthur turned and stopped.

'Wait!' he said, turning back. Ford watched, confused, as Arthur's slightly hunched form made its way painfully back to the cabin. Every fibre of him desperately wanted to follow him, and damn the ship, but he had experienced Zaphod in a real fury just once in his life, and had no desire to bring it upon himself again.

Arthur returned a minute later, wearing his dressing gown, the bulge in the front showing clearly where he had stowed the tea-caddy in his pocket. Ford realised the wisdom of Arthur's move as they entered onto the bridge and he became aware that the front of his own trousers was still something of an unnecessary advertisement, while Arthur's little visual indicator was was cloaked by the dressing gown's voluminous folds.

There was mild chaos on the bridge when they arrived. Alarms were going off and Eddie was singing mournfully to himself and spewing miles of ticker-tape. Small bursts of flame and billows of white smoke had broken out from control panels all round the room for no apparent reason, and from other places where there was nothing to burst into flame at all. Arthur supposed it was just one of those things that happened on board your common or garden spaceship, but it did make it awkward getting round to the main console without having his hems singed.

Zaphod stood in the middle of the mayhem, wearing his peril-sensitive sunglasses. Both Marvin and Trillian were ignoring him completely. Trillian was staring determinedly at the view-screen and did not look round when Ford and Arthur entered, for which small mercy, Ford was extremely grateful.

'Well?' asked Ford, putting a brave face on things.

'So you're here at last,' said Zaphod, grabbing wildly at a chair as Trillian turned them through another evasive move,

'Hey! A little warning kid?!' he called to her.

'I didn't get any myself,' she snapped back, 'If I could have a little help perhaps?'

'Sure, Ford's here now. He can help.'

Arthur waited, but Zaphod was swaying gently in his well-darkened little world again, hanging onto the chair-back and radiating cool.

'Er...' said Arthur, 'I'm here too.'

'Yeah?' asked Zaphod sharply, before turning to ignore him once more.

Arthur scowled at him and went to stand by Ford who was kneeling at the console next to Trillian and was stabbing at random buttons, much to her irritation.

'Hold on!' she cried suddenly, throwing the controls to the left before anybody had a chance to act on her warning. Arthur lost his footing and fell across Ford, narrowly avoiding jabbing his elbow into some rather tender soft tissue. Ford said,

'Oof!' which turned out to be fairly descriptive of all the beings on the bridge. Marvin had been knocked sideways and was leaning against the wall, resting on the edge of one foot, the other one working uselessly in the air.

'Typical,' he said morosely.

Zaphod had somersaulted over his chair and was lying on his back, a pair of foolish grins on his faces as he looked up at his own personal galaxy of stars, floating in front of his eyes.

Trillian was still hanging onto the controls although she had slipped off her chair and was straining to see over the top of the console to the view-screen.

Ford and Arthur lay in their little heap, both seriously hoping that the other would move in a second, because neither of them quite had the willpower to do it by themselves.

Nobody spoke for a minute or two, but then Zaphod sat up suddenly and shook his heads to clear them,

'Was that really necessary?' he asked scathingly.

'Yes,' replied Trillian, 'It got us out of range of his blasters just in time and threw us off at a good angle to take advantage of his blast-stream as he went past. He's doing a fast turn now, but I reckon we can outrun him if I can pull off a couple of tricks I've been saving up.

'Okay then, do that!' said Zaphod, for all the Galaxy as if the entire idea was of his own invention. Trillian let go of the controls, heaved herself back into her chair, pulled her hair back into the ponytail out of which it had been shaken, and hunched her shoulders in concentration. Ford and Arthur, left to their own devices on the floor, decided that it was probably safer down there, but managed to work up the vigour to get out of each others' laps and sit next to each other, backs against the console, looking decidedly innocent.

'I thought you came up here to help,' muttered Trillian. Ford shrugged,

'You seem to be doing a good enough job on your own. I tend to leave the actual flying bit to other people, you know?'

'Arthur?' said Trillian, in a voice that might have incorporated hope, exasperation, lack of expectation and irritation, had it not been entirely occupied with getting out words through a veil of concentration and strenuous effort. Arthur looked up at the bits of her he could see, then at Ford, who shrugged again and continued to watch Zaphod, then at the distance he would have to rise in order to be of assistance.

'Well, I...' he said quickly, 'As long as you know I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing...'

'Of course you don't,' said Trillian, in a way that was almost, but not quite, terribly insulting. Arthur couldn't override the deep feeling of guilt at not doing something more quickly, which threatened to make him do something courageous if he didn't carefully funnel it away from that sort of thing, so he pushed himself off the floor, trying to ignore the continuing throbbing in his groin, and stood next to Trillian, gripping the edge of the console hard. She grabbed his left hand and wrapped it around a control stick, giving him the most terribly inappropriate thoughts as his mind wandered off on its own for a moment. He jerked it back to the important business of the moment and thought instead about Trillian. She had placed his right hand on a big green lever and was telling him to move the control stick whichever way she said, and to pull hard on the green lever if she yelled 'green!' He had the horrible feeling that he was acting as a sort of brakeman, and that this was rather a responsible position for somebody whose brain could not currently be relied upon to remain focused, due to the fact that much of the blood owing to it was still hanging around hopefully at waist level, having enthusiastic conversations with the unfairly constrained contents of his testicles.

No. He had better not think about that. It caused twitchings and throbbings that would not be useful in the current situation. He was next to Trillian. Next to a girl he had once hoped to... It was odd, looking at it from this side of the whole thing, to evaluate his feelings as he stood next to this, undoubtedly very pretty, girl. The feelings he got when he looked at Trillian, he decided, were exactly the same as they had always been. She still made him feel protective and hopeful. She still gave him an awkward desire to get down on one knee and say a particular four, fateful words. The thing was, he recognised it as something other than what he had originally thought it to be. It was not the feeling he got when he looked at Ford.

When he looked at Trillian, the world did a little bunny-hop. He wanted to spend time with her, to have a chat, to enjoy her soft warmth and to listen to the higher pitch of her voice as she talked and laughed. He wanted to hear her say all the intelligent things she knew, which seemed so out of place in one so pretty. He wanted to bring her breakfast in bed. He wanted to look for sweet-smelling soaps and bunches of freesias that he could bring to her as a surprise when she'd had a rotten day; but when all was said and done, he could cope with the sensation. He could let it go. If he never saw her again it would be a great shame and he might mope again for a while, but he'd recover. He'd be all right. The feelings he had for Trillian were the same sort of feelings he had for his favourite pieces of music, the books he would start to reread the moment he turned the final page, the most attractive paintings he loved (except that he probably wouldn't buy freesias for a Botticelli.)

He had thought this was as bad as it got. But now he had Ford. When he looked at Ford, the world didn't just do bunny-hops, it grabbed hold of the nearest star and did somersaults over it. When he looked at Ford, he could no longer conceive of willingly letting him _not_ be with him. He wanted to grab hold of him so tightly that he was practically part of him, to lose himself in those blue eyes and never find his way back. He didn't want to bring him breakfast in bed, he wanted to _be_ breakfast in bed. He wanted to run naked across fields with him, no matter who was watching, if only it kept them together. He wanted to hear him insult the Earth, humans and all human endeavour. He wanted to watch as his mouth moved to form those syllables, and no longer care whether or not he was hearing him speak in English, or whether the Babelfish was translating some alien tongue. He wanted to be the one who could stand there at the end of a long day and, when all seemed to be lost, hold out his towel to Ford, and see him grasp it as tenderly as his own. The thing was, with Ford, if he went away now, he didn't think he would actually cope. The feelings he had for Ford were the same sort of feelings he had for life itself, for the ability to breathe. All things considered, he probably wouldn't give Ford freesias either.

* * *

Arthur shook himself and tried to listen to Trillian, who was glaring at him.

'Left,' she said firmly, with a warning in her voice that suggested she had given this command several times already. She relaxed as Arthur pulled the control left,

'If you don't concentrate,' she said, 'We are all going to die.' Arthur nodded, not really registering what she had said. He did listen, however, and the ship started to move on a winding pattern through space. It seemed that Trillian was now more in control of the situation, as the ship made far fewer jerking motions, and there seemed to be more long-term planning involved in its flight path.

Then a _Bang! _and a tremendous rocking ripped through the illusion that he was doing rather well at this steering lark, and Arthur fell backwards, onto Ford. Ford yelped and pushed him up, back to the console. Arthur chanced a glance back at him, and saw utter panic in Ford's eyes. Clearly his control did not extend to moments when he though no-one was looking. Arthur quickly looked back out to the front. It would not do to let Ford think he had let Arthur see _that_. He glanced at Trillian. She did not look either panicked or concentrated. She looked very calm and very sure of herself.

'Was that...good?' Arthur queried, his knuckles still embarrassingly white when he rested his hands back on the controls.

'It was perfect,' explained Trillian.

'Really, baby?' crooned Zaphod, coming up behind them and resting his hands on Trillian's shoulders. The third hand came down unthinkingly to rest on Arthur's shoulder, stroked absently at his dressing gown for a moment or two, did the nearest thing a hand can do to a double-take, and tucked itself back inside Zaphod's jacket front, hoping no-one had noticed it.

'It seemed kinda loud for something perfect,' he continued. She looked up at him and shook her head,

'It was exactly what I wanted him to do. He fired his blasters at us and caught us just where I'd planned, right on the edge at the rear. Flicked us straight through the orbit of that planet we just passed, giving us a great slingshot out the other side, while he got caught in a slow pull between those other two planets. It's a tight little system, he won't be able to haul himself out of there without some very careful calculations. We're heading away from him so fast he couldn't catch us if he trailed us for a week.

'Hey wow! That was like, really neat driving! Good thing I spotted the potential of this system and brought us this way at the start.'

Trillian's brow furrowed, but she didn't say anything. Zaphod's hands moved surreptitiously downwards and fiddled with the neckline of her top. Slowly a reluctant smile spread across her face and Arthur felt an irritated frown spread across his, despite himself. He sank back down to the floor.

The mattress had come onto the bridge, flolloped wetly towards the control desk and welloomed its way up to Ford, sighing gentle flurbles against his hand. By the time Arthur was back down at his level, he was stroking it absently. Arthur looked at him quizzically and Ford shrugged again, an action to which he seemed to be becoming irritatingly prone. He got up, leaving Arthur to tentatively reach out and stroke the mattress himself. The action, for some probably extremely wrong reason, made his groin start to throb dangerously again, and he groaned to himself. If he didn't get Ford off this bridge and back to somewhere private in the next ten minutes, he was going to have to do something very embarrassing.

He watched as Ford made his way over to the wall, knocked and waited as a tall, bubbling tank came into view. He pushed a button, received his new Babelfish and lifted the soft curls around his ears so that he could slip it in.

Arthur found the sight of the Babelfish disappearing into Ford's aural orifice hopelessly erotic. He moaned a frustrated little cry and flopped down onto the mattress, which curled itself up, insinuating itself under him until he was lying, face down, in the middle of it. Ford looked at him, then up at Trillian and Zaphod, whose little tête à tête was advancing towards the sort of level where onlookers become peeping toms.

He shrugged once more, realised that he needed to stop shrugging so much if he didn't want to end up permanently deformed, and got down onto the mattress, next to Arthur. The mattress willomied along its length,

'Voom,' it said happily, 'I feel deep in my innermost sprung pockets that you require a private room. I will take you to one.'

'Er...' said Ford, then caught himself about to shrug again and said,

'If you could make it my cabin, that would be...helpful.'

'Of course!' cried the mattress, delighted to be of service, 'Where is it?'

It took the best part of ten minutes to make the two minute trip, with Ford repeating the instructions and reminding the mattress of what it was trying to achieve about once every thirty seconds. It was hard to get irritable with the cheerful, obliging creature, but by the time it laid itself flat outside the cabin door, Ford was seriously considering losing his temper.

'Would you like me to come in and provide you with a firm, yet yielding base for your activities?' it asked hopefully.

'No!' cried Ford, grabbed Arthur by the arm and yanked him inside the cabin.

* * *

Arthur had thought that he knew the meaning of the word 'urgency'. What he had experienced before, however, was nothing to the onslaught he found himself subjected to, both from Ford, and from himself. Ford's hands were everywhere, sliding frantically up and down his ribs, his inner thighs, the curves of his bottom. Then they were in his hair, holding him by the temples so that he couldn't hope to get out of the kiss that threatened to cut off his air supply. Not that he wanted to get out of it.

His own hands were also in a state of high motion. Without being prompted, they helped themselves to the zip on Ford's trousers and Arthur felt Ford sigh into his mouth as the pressure on his most sensitive parts was relieved a little. He slid the trousers down, letting his hands wander wherever they wanted, which was mostly round the front of Ford, where he had never quite raised the courage to place his fingers prior to this moment. When his hands gave him a moment, he shrugged off the dressing gown and the pyjama top, which Ford had helpfully prepared for this action during a break from holding Arthur's head in place, and it was everso easy just to wriggle and shuffle until his pyjama bottoms were out of the way around his ankles, and then, with a little more effort, trodden underfoot.

'Ford,' he gasped, during the moment when Ford broke the kiss, looking down, with his forehead still pressed hard against Arthur's eyebrow, to kick his own trousers out of the way, 'D'you think...'

'No,' said Ford, and resumed kissing him.

'All right,' said Arthur's brain in acquiescence. He let himself be pushed hard back against the cabin wall and whimpered slightly as Ford let go of his head, running his hands firmly over Arthur's shoulders and down his chest to rest on his waist. He whimpered more loudly as Ford's tongue did the same trick, but straight down the middle of his chest, and came to rest somewhat lower.

His hands missed their freedom to roam across Ford's body, but the rest of him could hardly complain, so he pushed his fingers into Ford's hair and looked down through vaguely blurred eyes. If he bent his knee a little and tilted it in just so, he could rub it against Ford's shoulder, in time with Ford's own movements. The soft skin seemed fiery against his leg and he stopped almost immediately. Besides, his hips were trying to do their own thing: Ford grasping them firmly and trying to make them behave wasn't actually achieving very much. Arthur let his head roll back and his eyes close so that he could let what was left of his brain think about more important things than processing visual information. The ache in his groin built to a shattering peak of excruciating sensation, then burst into a shower of nerve tingles as his hips continued their personal dance and a wonderfully drowsy, voided feeling started to spread through him.

Ford let his left hand retrace its steps back to Arthur's shoulder as he got up off his knees, softly wiping his mouth with his right hand. He pressed himself against Arthur, who vaguely registered a prodding at his leg that he believed he was probably entitled to do something about. He let his own hand move lazily between them and grasped what he found. Ford was kissing him again, slipping his hands around Arthur's back as he gently pulled and teased his comfortable handful, and it was hardly any less glorious when Ford's arms tightened around him and Arthur felt the way his mouth opened, helpless against his own, his teeth dragging, abandoned across Arthur's upper lip.

The door opened with a happy sigh, and the mattress flolloped quietly in, catching them as they slid down the wall, and flipping them carefully into its middle.

* * *

_Will Ford and Arthur stay on the mattress all night? Will Zaphod let them get up in their own good time tomorrow morning? Will we be any closer to finding out just what exactly it was that Ford said to Zaphod? Personally, I have no idea. Actually persuading them to do the deed properly has made my brain go all mushy :)_


	15. Morning Glory

**Chapter 15 – Morning Glory**

Arthur woke in an incredible amount of pain. He kicked his leg out to try to relieve the cramp and was rewarded with a heartfelt yell from Ford, with whose knee his flailing leg had connected. The cramp didn't go, it felt as if his muscle was about to snap, and while his rational brain knew that this was fairly unlikely, the parts responsible for reflexive movements remained unconvinced and tried to get him to his feet. This attempt was largely unsuccessful for three reasons. Firstly, his right arm was under Ford and was so numb that even had he been able to extricate it, he could not have used it to push himself up without considerable help from the left arm to put it in place for the manoeuvre. Secondly, he was curled tightly around Ford with his other leg between his thighs, which not only made untangling himself rather awkward, but had also resulted in a crick in his back that shot further spasms of pain up and down his spine as he attempted to straighten it. Thirdly, he wasn't actually properly awake yet and there were vague hints circling around in his head that if he decided to get up now, he would not remain upright for very long.

He stretched down, muttering what was meant to be an apology to Ford, but came out more as a,

'Sahhoww.'

He grabbed his foot as Ford harrumphed next to him, and pulled back on the toes as hard as he could. The pain eased and he thought that maybe he might have saved his hamstrings this time. He lay back panting and tentatively wiggling his toes, on the alert for the first inkling of a relapse. The sweat was pouring off him, soaking into the mattress...the mattress...

...the mattress willomied slightly as his movements roused it, and it crooned gently to him. Ford opened one sleepy eye, reached to pull up some blankets that were not there, tutted to himself and rolled over, into Arthur's side, tucking himself against Arthur's naked torso, flinging a leg over his and not bringing the slightest relief to his trapped arm. The mattress sighed and a little shimmy ran up and down its length. Arthur's brain registered the movement and the fact that he and Ford were being...observed, but couldn't bring himself to care. Ford opened one eye again and tilted his head up to look at Arthur through a haze of ginger curls,

'Y'alright?' he muttered vaguely through sleep-thick lips. Arthur blinked, there it was: the concern again. He was in pain and Ford cared...showed that he cared, rather. After all, it was obvious now that Ford had cared for much longer than he had been willing to admit and...

'Mmm,' he replied, shaking his leg a little to check, and relieved to find that he was telling the truth. He brought his hand up and let it rest on Ford's bare shoulder, impressed by the atmospheric sensors on the _Heart of Gold_ which had somehow decided that warmer would be better tonight and had provided the sort of temperatures in which you could feasibly sleep naked on a still slightly damp mattress without any sort of blankets.

Ford's lips were moving slightly against his chest and the idea of pulling him up and kissing him soundly would have been very attractive, were Arthur not aware that his mouth tasted like the last rotting piece of cabbage at the back of the vegetable drawer. Ford was apparently thinking along the same lines, unsurprisingly, since what Arthur liked, in his more whimsical moments, to refer to as a _Convulvulus_ was now resting stiffly against Arthur's hip.

Ford's nose twitched a couple of times and he made a couple of exploratory movements with his tongue. Clearly unsatisfied with the results, he opened both eyes and peered over his shoulder to where his satchel lay, half open on the floor. He reached his arm back for it, letting Arthur's hand slide down to his neck, and grunted irritably. He reached again, but it was no good, the satchel was just too far away.

'Zark it,' he muttered.

The mattress hummed slightly and then said in a very quiet voice, almost a whisper,

'Would it oblige you, flurble, if I were to move a little in that direction?' It settled down, waiting for an answer.

'Um,' whispered Ford in reply, 'Yes...that would be very...helpful.' He gave Arthur a little facial shrug and clung to him as the mattress gently undulated its way sideways across the floor towards the satchel. When it was cozied up next to it, it stopped and sank down with a slight sigh. Arthur raised an eyebrow,

'Thank-you,' he said, for lack of anything else to say.

Ford reached back into the satchel and fumbled around in one of the inner pockets. When he withdrew his hand, it was clutching a small bottle with a spray nozzle on top.

'Open wide,' he said to Arthur. Arthur looked at him nervously, but obeyed. Ford squirted some of the contents of the bottle into his mouth and then turned it on himself, smacking his lips and throwing the bottle back into his bag. He returned to his former position on Arthur's chest.

'Better?' he asked. Arthur nodded. It was breath freshener, but not the sort he'd used on occasion on Earth. This was not a bottle of fouly oppressive mintiness that took your breath away and left a faintly astringent aftertaste that faded after about ten minutes, leaving you with very little in the way of benefits. This was an entirely different beast. His mouth felt like it had been scoured out, and the feeling extended right down his throat. His tongue had lost its unpleasant fuzziness. His teeth were no longer furry, his mouth tasted fresh and clean and, ultimately, extremely kissable.

'Why did you never show me that before?' he asked, 'It's amazing.' Visions of never having to brush his teeth in the car on the way to work again leapt into his head, before he realised that the likelihood of his ever being able to do this again was so improbable that the infinite improbability drive wouldn't have a long enough input screen to deal with all the numerals after the ninety-nine point nine nine...

'Because,' said Ford, 'It's zarking expensive. Do you have any idea who I had to sleep with to get hold of that?' He looked up through his hair again to see Arthur looking down at him with horror.

'Joking,' Ford promised, 'Really Arthur, only Zaphod pays for stuff with sex. It was expensive though. It required all my ingenuity to get hold of a bottle for free, and I'm not sure I could pull the same stunt twice. In fact, I don't think I'll ever have the nerve to go back, and that's the only place you can get the stuff. I only use it in emergencies and for very special occasions.' He ran a hand across Arthur's chest.

'And, er...which is this?' asked Arthur, slightly nervously.

'An emergency. I'm in desperate need here, and I'm not playing guess the sewer with you. We really should have cleaned our teeth before we started all this last night.'

'As I recall, there wasn't much time for that sort of thing,' said Arthur, drawing a sharp breath as Ford ran a hand down over his hips.

'No,' agreed Ford, before proving the efficacy of his little bottle and kissing Arthur carefully in a not-quite-awake sort of way.

'I've...I've got another bottle in my bag...' he said, slightly uncomfortably, as if he wanted to say it but didn't want to find out that it was the wrong thing to say,

'Alcohol?' asked Arthur wearily.

'No-o. A little bottle...quite small. Slippery contents. Um...'

Arthur raised his head slightly, it was rather out of character for Ford to be so nervous about saying something. He thought for a moment, looking into Ford's eyes with his brow wrinkled in confusion. Slippery? A small bottle? Slippery? Slipp... Ah. Right. Got you.

'Um...' he said, 'I don't...I'm not sure. I mean I'm not saying I wouldn't...'

'S'okay,' said Ford, shaking his head, 'It was just an idea, but I don't want to do anything you're not... Oh Zarquon...' He moaned the last two words, bringing one hand up to rub vigourously at his eyes as if he were trying to rub away a painful sinus attack.

'What?' asked Arthur, looking worried, 'Look, Ford, I'll think about...'

'No, it's not that,' said Ford, bringing his hand down and composing his face so that no sign of his momentary lapse remained, 'It's just something I did that I'm going to have to sort out. Nothing...nothing to do with you, Arthur.' The way he said this made it so completely obvious that it was a lie that Arthur couldn't bring himself to point it out. Besides, Ford was nibbling at his chest in a very pleasant sort of way and he didn't want to do anything that might stop him. However, in a couple of moments, Ford stopped of his own accord,

'Arthur, you remember when you got yourself kidnapped?' Arthur shot him a displeased sort of look: _got himself kidnapped? _That was hardly how he'd have put it, but still, Ford was looking deadly serious, which didn't happen very often, so he just nodded and listened.

'I was...looking for something to do, and I looked up something in the Guide. It was behaving very oddly – it seemed to be...it was like it was reading your mind.' He gazed at Arthur, who felt a little shiver run up his body and hide round the back of his neck.

'Really?' he asked, looking slightly worried, 'What was I thinking?'

'I don't know. It was gibberish. But it _sounded_ like you. I mean, it was all the sorts of things you talk about. Tea and panic and...and me. I think.'

'Oh,' said Arthur, because there really wasn't much else he _could_ say.

'But,' he went on, when he realised there _was_ something he could say, '_The Guide_ doesn't do that, does it? I mean, it's written, by people like you, isn't it?'

'Yes. It is.'

'So...'

'I don't know Arthur. It was just one of those things. I thought you might like to know. I mean, there's not a lot I can do about it...'

'Would you show me?'

'What?'

'Show me the entry...I mean, if my private thoughts are appearing in a Galaxy-wide publication, I probably ought to at least check them for accuracy...' he looked steadily at Ford, who seemed uncertain, but reached back into his satchel for his copy of the _Guide_.He fiddled with the buttons, looking for his search history. When he found it, he passed it to Arthur as he pressed the enter key.

Arthur looked at the screen. It was blank. There was no entry under the question header.

'It's gone,' he said. Ford stuck out his lower lip pensively, then shrugged, as if the disappearance of the entry at least simplified matters. Arthur glanced up to the top of the screen and idly read the search under which Ford had found this mysterious and temporary entry. He felt the faintest hint of a lump sneaking its way into his throat. He wanted to ask Ford something along the lines of, 'Did your insides _really_ go all wobbly at the thought of having lost me forever?' but got the feeling that no matter how carefully he asked it, Ford would never quite forgive him for doing that to him. Ford seemed to realise that Arthur might be getting more information off the screen than he had intended and snatched it back, stuffing it back into the satchel,

'Oh well,' he said to cover his sudden move, 'I suppose I'll never know why. It was just...odd.' Arthur didn't say anything. The very idea that Ford had admitted to the _Guide_ that he was feeling wobbly was incredible. It was interesting, it was...arousing. Arthur's body decided he'd done enough thinking for the time being and his arm came up to grasp Ford by the shoulder and pull him up to a position whereby he could kiss him satisfactorily without straining his neck. Having finally got his back straightened out, he didn't want to do any more damage in that area. Speaking of which...

'Ford, could I have my arm back, please?' Ford looked at him, then grinned and rolled on top of him.

'That wasn't quite what I...' Arthur gasped as the air was squeezed out of him, but Ford was warm and mischievous and Arthur decided that whether or not it had been what he'd meant, it would do for the time being. He attempted to bring his released arm up to place over Ford's shoulders, but it wouldn't move. It lay there on the bed ignoring every command he sent to it. An unpleasantly sweet pain hovering around the shoulder. He reached across Ford and picked the useless arm up with his other hand. It was cold and felt like Nothing wrapped in skin. He pulled it up and draped it across Ford's back. He couldn't feel it at all. He narrowed his eyes and griped,

'No feeling at all. Next time you can put your arm under _me_.' Ford grinned and Arthur cursed under his breath as the feeling started to come back and a burning sensation shot up and down from shoulder to fingertips.

'You humans malfunction very easily, don't you?' asked Ford, wiggling his eyebrows.

'Ow!' was all Arthur could manage in response.

When the burning had gone away and he could recognise his fingers as being part of him again and send down a few test instructions to them to trace a couple of well-chosen patterns on Ford's back, he broke off from the kiss that Ford had seen fit to engage in while they waited.

'I'm sorry about the...the bottle,' he said. Ford looked slightly awkward,

'No. It was only if you...' he trailed off. Clearly he had no desire to argue his case and wasn't about to let Arthur bully him into explaining.

'You really want to, don't you,' said Arthur, 'Really, I am sorry. I will think about it. It's just nothing I'd ever considered I might do.' He paused, 'Actually, none of this is anything I'd ever considered that I might do, but that's just more...I don't know. I'd like to think,' he went on, suddenly going at it like a steam train, determined to say what he felt, 'I'd like to think that I'd do anything for you.' He stopped.

'Within reason,' he added, just in case.

The look on Ford's face was very odd. It was as if he were calculating some particularly knotty problem in his head. At last he shook it and sniffed once,

'I'll wait. Just, just let me know.'

Arthur kissed him. It was all he could think of to do. He felt Ford pressing against his stomach. Ford would probably appreciate some assistance in getting rid of that. If he couldn't oblige him one way, could he make up for it by doing that? It would be the decent thing to do, after all, Ford had done it for him last night, and this morning he, Arthur, had just, by the looks of things, fairly scuppered some of Ford's hoped-for plans. Whatever it was that Ford felt, it was still manifesting itself as mild desperation in the way he kissed Arthur. Well, there was half the argument: Ford would not object. Did Arthur have the nerve to do it? He'd never done it before...it would be unfamiliar territory. Well, wasn't everything in this ridiculous new existence he found himself subjected to? Why make an exception just because he actually had a choice about this situation? He brought his restored hand up to Ford's face and caressingly pushed him back from him. Holding his shoulders he rolled him back onto the bed, got to his knees and shuffled down to his waist.

Ford watched him, slipping his hands behind his head to make a pillow so that he could watch. He seemed to be holding his breath, disbelief taking a hold of him: was Arthur actually going to...without him suggesting it? When Arthur kissed him, feathery-light, he let out a shuddering breath that he seemed to have been holding forever. He closed his eyes and felt Arthur's mouth close around him, inexpert, but determined. It would be enough. The scared-to-hurt gentleness of the sucking and nipping was slowly replaced with a bolder canon of strokes and tight-tongued fondles as he gained in confidence and remembered a little of what Ford had done last night. Ford felt every little change of tack, but through it all, it was the realisation that this was _Arthur Dent_ doing this, strait-laced, conservative Arthur Dent, scourge of administrative busybodies everywhere and the epitome of English civility, who was bent over him repaying a favour on which Ford had never, truly anticipated a return, that brought him to the edge and pushed him, gasping over it, while Arthur stayed put and swallowed his pride.

When he could think straight, Ford looked down at Arthur, who was resting his chin on Ford's stomach and looking innocently up at him with a questioning 'well?' on his face. Ford smiled and croaked,

'Good, Arthur...good...' His face fell as he remembered what it was that had been bothering him before he had been so pleasantly interrupted.

'What's up?' Arthur asked, scooting back up the bed and resting his hand on Ford's cheek. Ford shook the hand away, he was feeling very strange. Very Not Ford. He wanted to apologise, more strongly than he ever had in his life. Well, it wouldn't matter here. Zaphod wasn't here, he need never know...but it would be seriously un-froody to do it...but then, this was Arthur who had just...and while plenty of beings over the years had done that, or something similar, according to their facial arrangements, to Ford, none of them had felt like a surprise, like this wasn't something they'd do for just anyone. Arthur would not do what he had just done for _anyone_ else. Of this, Ford was certain. That made him feel amazingly, ludicrously, unbelievably guilty.

He looked down. Arthur had enjoyed doing that, too. Or parts of him had, at least. The evidence was trying not to slip between Ford's thighs. There were options here. Either he could deal with Arthur, admittedly not in the way he would have liked to, but satisfactorily, nonetheless; or he could tell him what was bothering him. The first option was the most attractive by several light-years. He pulled his ego into a tight little bundle for safe-keeping, tied a knot in the top and stuffed it into a compartment in the back of his brain where it couldn't come to any harm.

'Arthur,' he said, 'I've got a problem.'

'Mmhmm,' said Arthur, tightening his grip on Ford's shoulders in a friendly, reassuring sort of way.

'I did something yesterday that I shouldn't have done, and now I wish I hadn't and I don't know how I'm going to get out of it and it involves you and I know you're not going to like it and I'm sorry really sorry I can't tell you how much I wish I hadn't but it's done now and I don't see how I'm going to make it all right...'

Arthur swallowed. This was...unusual. Ford never said things like this. Never

'What sort of thing?' he asked, his voice coming out more high-pitched than he would have liked.

'Well, you know when I spoke to Zaphod and he calmed down and you asked me what I'd said and I wouldn't tell you...'

'Yes.'

'Well, really, that's it. I'd like to tell you now. But you're not going to like it.'

Arthur looked hard at him for a moment. This, if he wasn't very much mistaken, was a truly repentant Ford. Whatever he had done, and Arthur would lay good odds that it was fairly major, boy, was he sorry now. Well, it was good form to accept an apology sincerely made, and Arthur was never one to hold a grudge.

Ford was startled to find that instead of doing the expected thing, of letting Ford go, sitting back and settling down to hear whatever feeble excuses Ford could come up with for whatever it was he had done, Arthur reached his arms around him, squeezed him tightly and said,

'Go on.'

* * *

_Is Ford actually going to reveal the answer to the question we've been asking for several chapters? Or is he just being a terrible tease? Answers on a postcard ;D_


	16. Slight Misunderstandings

_A/N: Yes, I'm sorry. I know. Slapped wrist._

* * *

**Chapter 16 - Slight Misunderstandings**

'It's Zaphod, you see,' Ford started, tentatively relaxing into Arthur's arms, preparing to be ousted at any moment, 'He...well, he sort of expects to get his own way with everything, and most of the time he does, so he gets really irritated when I stand up to him a bit. It's always been the same. Even back when we were kids, I didn't want to be the little idiot in the corner, always doing what my cousin said because he was bigger and cooler than me. I used to do things just to get on his nerves, then whenever I did actually offer to do what he wanted, it was great leverage. I used to bargain with him on things he wanted me to do. I guess that's why I get a little respect off him now. Not many people do, unless they've got breasts the size of your head...and I'm not sure that actually counts as respect...'

_Ford and Zaphod grew up together, _thought Arthur, _Strange idea when you think about it. I suppose you never really think about aliens having to go to school and that sort of thing when you live on Earth. Every alien I ever imagined just sort of arrived fully adult and ready to zap the population of Earth with their giant ray guns..._

'...and I thought it wouldn't matter, because I didn't...'

_...Then again, I suppose it does explain a lot. At least Ford doesn't display most of Zaphod's worst characteristics, or not to the same extent, anyway, and he does have such incredible eyes and those lips, oh God, those lips..._

'...so much, but I know that's not something you'd ever want to do, certainly not to be volunteered for, and now...'

_...so it wouldn't really be fair to think the worst of him just for speaking to Zaphod. Come along, Arthur, don't get into bad habits. Besides, he's apologised and he did say he'd tell you..._ Arthur froze, Ford _had_ been telling him, and he hadn't heard a word of it. How did you tell a man who had just, with fair warning, bared his soul to you, that you had not, in fact, been listening to a single word?

'Well...that's it really. So now I don't know what to do. I could go back on my word, but I guess Zaph would kick us off the ship if I did that. Thing is, I don't really know where we are, except that thanks to Trillian's evasion strategy, we're well off the shipping lanes. If I'd thought about it, I suppose I'd have realised that you'd never agree to do it. I'm just so used to doing that sort of thing and it _not_ mattering because it's just something we do. I'm...I'm sorry Arthur.'

Arthur swallowed. What the hell was he going to say? He didn't have the faintest clue what Ford was talking about. He thought quickly, feeling Ford's shoulder, solid and tempting beneath his fingers.

Ford had offered something to Zaphod. Presumably, since he was so bothered about it, something that involved Arthur. Knowing Ford and Zaphod, it probably involved one of two things: alcohol or sex. If it involved Arthur, it was unlikely to be alcohol...unless they were planning to lay bets on how quickly they could get him under the table... Still unlikely, they were much more inclined to bet on how quickly they could drink _each other_ under the table.

So then, if Arthur was being honest about the man around whom he currently had his arms, it probably meant sex. Sex with Zaphod? Would Ford promise him to his semi-cousin just like that? Possibly. He'd certainly have a right to feel guilty about it now if he had... So, working on the assumption that that was what it was, which seemed a safe bet and prevented Arthur from having to consider any other possibilities as to what Ford might have agreed to do... then Arthur had to formulate a response. A response to an unknown question... _Well, we've had enough practice with _those_, at least,_ thought Arthur.

He could refuse outright. Just say no. But...then again, if it was that easy, surely Ford would just have sneaked off when he wasn't looking and told Zaphod 'No deal'. He'd said that Zaphod would kick them off the ship. Would that be so bad?

_Yes, _he told himself definitely. One stay on an undeveloped planet in the middle of nowhere was enough for one lifetime. Never again. Even with Ford on hand.

Then again, perhaps Zaphod _wouldn't _kick them off. Was it worth the risk? Maybe. He might just refuse to speak to them. That would be a bonus. He might be really unpleasant to Ford, then Ford might get annoyed or even angry with Arthur. That would be...unbearable.

So, what was the alternative? To agree? To agree to something unknown which might, conceivably, involve intimate relations with Zaphod, or other severe personal incursions or embarrassment. Was his relationship with Ford worth that?

He felt Ford's too-warm flesh under his fingers and when he looked down and saw those blue, blue eyes looking questioningly up at him, his whole nervous system seemed to twitch.

Yes. It was.

'Okay. I'll do it.'

Ford jumped away from him as if he'd been scalded,

'What?'

'I'll do it. If the alternative is misery, exile and...and possibly losing you, I'll do it.'

'Arthur...' he stopped, looking at Arthur warily.

'Yes?'

'You can't just do this because it's easier for me or something. I wouldn't do it for you if I didn't want to...'

'I know.'

'You don't like that sort of thing. You never have. You'd never do it...You'd hate it if I suggested it...'

'I know.'

'You can't do it Arthur.'

Arthur started to feel a little annoyed. Ford had made the suggestion initially. It was, therefore, none of his business if Arthur now decided to take up the offer.

'Ford, if I say I am willing to do something, I mean it. You offered it in the first place.'

'Do you mean you approve?'

'No I don't approve. I accept your apology and I'm willing to make the best of a bad job.'

Ford looked at him extremely uncertainly, but there was something about the steady way in which Arthur returned the look that reassured him. He sank back towards him and pressed his lips against Arthur's,

'Thanks,' he murmured, so softly that Arthur was quite sure he hadn't really meant the gratitude to be heard. Arthur closed his eyes and let himself fall into the kiss, wondering what he had agreed to and whether he should start panicking now or later. On balance, later seemed like the better option.

There were better ways to occupy his mind right now, like following the sensation of Ford's hand wandering distractedly down his body and settling between his legs. Like lazily opening half an eye and watching Ford's face as he raised his hand back to it and sucked on his finger, before drawing it slowly out of his mouth, conscious of his audience. Like feeling the dampened digit trail down past his hip and return to its former resting-place. Like feeling himself invaded, ever so slowly and carefully, and to such a small degree that, should he choose to complain, it could be argued that he really had nothing to complain _of_.

Arthur chose not to complain. It flashed through his mind that he was becoming very easily distracted lately and it was entirely possible that at some point in the not too distant future, he was going to have all these moments of abstraction come back and bite him very hard on the bottom...now _there_ was an interesting idea...

He moved his hand down to feel the suitability of Ford's bottom for such an activity and was rewarded with a wiggle of the exploratory finger that made him go 'Aahooo' very quietly.

His fingers dug into the muscles of Ford's bottom and he felt them tense and transfer their power up through the base of his spine. Ford gasped and pushed his finger deeper. Arthur yelped, his lips forming the beginning of an expletive which, given the circumstances, might have been rather ill advised, and let go of Ford's bottom. Ford pulled his hand back sharply,

'Sorry,' he said, then wondered what in the name of Zarquon had happened to him? He was apologising all the time. Arthur must have noticed. This was serious.

Arthur's breathing was heavy and he looked more surprised than anything else,

'No, no,' He said, replacing his hands, 'That was...' He couldn't bring himself to say what exactly it was, so instead, he grasped Ford's tense hand and suggested to it that it might like to return from whence it came. Ford raised his eyebrows and complied. He was confused. Arthur should have been a lot more angry than that...he should have been angry full stop. Had he really listened, or was he just editing out what he didn't want to hear and agreeing because it made life easier and life was complicated enough right now? Why was he, Ford, even worrying about what he was thinking?

What _Arthur _was thinking was that there was definitely something niggling at the back of his brain. There was a theory, he recalled, that you remember everything you ever see, hear, read or experience in any way whatsoever. It is all stored by the subconscious, to be retrieved only by chance or by forcibly dragging it to the surface during revision for exams. This is the explanation for why, after thirty years of blissful forgetfulness, one might suddenly recall with perfect, agonising clarity, every single word of 'My Ding-a-Ling' in the middle of a long, dull train journey. Why one might be forced to humiliate oneself with an in-depth knowledge of the names of every Disney character one ever saw in one's youth. Why one might find oneself screaming at the television, 'Ghana! For pity's sake, Ghana!', then thinking, only seconds later, when one has been proven correct, _How the hell did I know that?_

Everything stored somewhere...including what Ford had said while Arthur's brain was otherwise engaged.

_'Zaphod has this thing he likes to do...'_ it began. He remembered that much...well, that wasn't exactly a propitious start.

_'Only, it's not something you can do on your own, or even with two...you...you kind of need four...and it's sort of probably not the sort of thing you'd actually be into...'_ No. That didn't sound good at all. Arthur's finger's tightened around Ford's hand and he wished they hadn't, because that sent a wave of unexpected pleasure through him that really interfered with the less pleasurable thoughts flitting around in his head.

_...Four?_

_'...I know he's got Trillian on board somehow. Don't ask me how. Probably didn't explain exactly what he meant...he can really be quite cunning like that...'_

Arthur let go of Ford's hand and pushed at his chest. It killed him to do it, but it was feeling rather important that he should go and have a chat with Trillian. Urgently. He watched Ford's face tip up towards him and considered the best way to do this. There wasn't one. On the other hand, he had promised himself that he would not hold anything against Ford...hmmm, well, so much for _that_.

'Excuse me,' he said, 'Just...I won't be long.'

He shuffled out from under Ford, winced as Ford's hand pulled away, struggled to his feet and grabbed his pyjamas. There was the slight shuffling slither of skin on ticking caused by someone in a state of utter confusion rising onto their elbows on an un-sheeted mattress.

'Arthur?'

'Couple of minutes.' Ford looked at him quizzically, watched him head for the door, stop, turn around, and go to the bathroom. There was a pause, the sound of somebody strategically deploying cold water from the sink, having realised that the shower was poorly designed for some functions, and a series of little intakes of breath. Then he returned, grabbed his dressing gown, nodded at Ford, and went out of the room. The door sighed contentedly. Ford didn't.

Arthur made his way down the corridor to Trillian's room. He knocked.

'Hey!' said the door, then it seemed to collect itself and said, 'Can I be of service?'

'Er, is there anybody in there?'

'Yes,' replied the door. It did not elaborate. It was not programmed to anticipate questions.

'Who?' asked Arthur. The door stayed resolutely silent. Apparently it had been programmed not to answer questions like that.

Arthur knocked again. There was a groan from inside the room and an 'ouch!' from the door. He considered leaving, thought back to why he was here, and knocked again.

There was another groan, the sound of sheets being manoeuvred past heavy limbs, the quiet shriek of someone female being mildly squashed, and the pad of feet on hard floor.

The door opened and Zaphod appeared. He was ruffled and rather naked. Arthur closed his eyes for a moment, made sure he'd be looking at eye level when he opened them, and did so, keeping them fixed firmly on Zaphod's face.

'Yeah?' asked Zaphod's left head. The right was looking back over his shoulder in a hopeful sort of way.

'Uh, is Trillian in there?' asked Arthur, knowing the answer. After all, there was only one person on board capable of making authentic female noises.

'Why d'you ask, Monkey Man?'

Arthur stood his ground,

'I need to talk to her. It won't take a minute.'

'Uh, no.' Zaphod turned his back on Arthur and the door started to slide closed. Arthur slipped inside.

Trillian was lying on the bed, trying to cover herself up with the small corner of sheet Zaphod had left at her disposal when he had crawled out to answer the door. She stared at Arthur with the sort of look that says its owner has temporarily abdicated all responsibility for thought and action.

It was clear that Arthur had just interrupted Something.

'Um...' he started, realising too late that he probably should have thought about what he was actually going to say on the way, rather than now, when it was obvious he needed to speak up or get out. His brain went into panic mode and tried to regroup at a safe distance. The result of his brain's temporary leave of absence was a similar lack of obvious intelligence in his facial expression. His lower jaw dropped slightly and his eyes grew wide and blank. Then part of his brain that had decided it preferred being on the front line to all this hanging around looked up sharply and noticed that Arthur was staring rather noticeably at the curves of Trillian's breasts below the meagre piece of sheet barely covering them. It also noticed that if he wasn't careful, it was going to look very much as though he were trying to work out whether the darkness visible just below the edge of sheet that ran across her upper thighs was just shadow, or something more important. More importantly, it noticed that Zaphod was looking at Arthur and noticing these things as well.

That part of Arthur's brain sounded a rallying call and within...well, a good fifteen seconds, the rest of Arthur's mind came rushing back, fresh-faced and full of bright ideas.

'Trillian,' he said, in the same way he might start asking somebody in the office whether or not the electricity in the kitchen was back on yet, 'Do you know...' he glanced at Zaphod nervously. He wished he hadn't. Zaphod had the sort of look on his face that suggested he had understood something. Arthur hoped he was wrong about what he thought it was. 'Would you mind very much just coming out into the corridor with me a moment?'

'It's not very convenient Arthur,' she replied, looking pointedly down at her unclothed limbs.

'I know. I'm sorry, but it really is rather important. I'll...I'll go out and you could join me when you're decent.'

'Hey!' said Zaphod, 'Don't I get a say in this? You're here about our agreement, right?'

Arthur said nothing. It seemed like the safest thing to say.

'Look, Trillian's in. You're in, I guess, since you're here. Ford's...Hey, where _is_ Ford?'

'He's in his room.'

'Why?' Zaphod looked utterly perplexed, then he shrugged, looking so like Ford for a moment that Arthur's heart did an involuntary little leap.

'I guess he'll be along in a minute.'

'Er, I...' said Arthur abortively. Zaphod already had hold of his arm and was dragging him towards the bed.

'No really, I...' he attempted as he lost his dressing gown to Zaphod's skilled fingers.

'No!' He cried with rather more force, wrapping his arms around himself to avoid having his pyjama top removed in much the same fashion.

'Zaphod! What are you doing?!' Trillian shouted, looking at him through ferocious eyebrows. Zaphod paused. Both heads snapped round to look at her,

'Only what we agreed, baby! You said you were in!'

Trillian struggled off the bed, holding her sheet firmly about herself,

'You said,' said Trillian, 'And I quote, "Since this is my ship and you've all been lolling about on it for Zark knows how long without me making any sort of a fuss," well, that's questionable, and I might remind you that _you_ picked _me_ up, "How about this for an idea: Dinner, real food, not NutriMatic. Appetizers on Ford, Main course on you," that is, me, "Dessert on Arthur. Entertainment by yours truly at no extra charge." Now tell me at what point in that little list there was anything about stripping Arthur and dragging him into bed?'

Zaphod looked a little sheepish under her hard gaze.

'Uh, it's hardly my fault if you don't take things as literally as I mean them, is it...?'

'Oh,' said Arthur, light beginning to dawn.

'Oh,' said Trillian, wondering why she had been so stupid. This was Zaphod. Zaphod who wouldn't know decent food if it came gift-wrapped. Who wouldn't bother getting people to pay for his dinner when he could just as easily steal it. Come to think of it, there was a sort of smell of mashed potato and gravy coming from the bedside locker. There was also a pot of toffee-flavoured sauce on top of it.

'No,' said Trillian emphatically, 'No way. You are not getting me to do that. Maybe on my own I might have let you if you'd asked nicely...and you can get any ideas like that out of your head because you blew _that_ chance. Arthur doesn't want you doing...that to him, particularly not if the_ entertainment _is what I think it is. I can't speak for Ford. I suppose he doesn't mind.'

'Ford promised. He said he and Arthur would do it. I am taking promises very seriously...'

'Today,' he added, to make things quite clear. He reached out two hands to undo the top button of Arthur's pyjamas. Arthur was wormed so far back into the headboard that he couldn't get away. Trillian lunged at Zaphod, caught her foot in Arthur's dressing gown, tripped and fell onto Zaphod, catching him off balance and sending him headfirst into Arthur's chest. Trillian landed with her forehead buried in Zaphod's groin and the hand grasping the top of Arthur's pyjama bottoms. As she slid down, so did Arthur's trousers. Zaphod moaned and tried to extricate himself, but his heads were wedged either side of Arthur's neck, so all he could do was moan and grab the nearest thing he could find with each of his hands.

A kamikaze yell joined the moans and groans from the tangled heap on the bed, and Arthur watched in amazement as Ford, undressed and swinging his towel like a maniac, leapt through the door and launched himself onto the top of the heap.

* * *

_Will Zaphod get his way? Will Ford? Will Trillian and Arthur ever get untangled from Zaphod. What, when it all comes down to it, would it matter if Zaphod didn't get dinner tonight? Well now, there's a question..._


	17. Towel Fu

_A/N: Sorry this one's a bit short, but it was either that, or not post for another two weeks. Since I fear retribution from my lovely, charming, whimsical...and occasionally minorly scary reviewers, who I respect, admire and deeply love, I have posted :)_

* * *

**Chapter 17 – Towel Fu**

There was a general 'Oof!' from the pile of people. Nine arms waved wildly, trying to extricate themselves from the general melée.

Trillian had lost her sheet. It was inaccessible under Zaphod. She scrabbled blindly at the nearest thing to her. Arthur yelped and his hands whipped down to try to cover himself. Instead, one hand landed in Ford's hair, clouting him inwards to collide with Trillian's retreating hand, then on into Arthur's groin, where he rested his head for a second, trying to figure out what to do next. Arthur's other hand found itself caught between Zaphod's right arms, which clamped down on it like a startled clam. Trillian, her dignity in tact due to the fact that she had managed to avoid catching Arthur's eye by having her head still very firmly and inextricably buried in Zaphod's groin, managed to make a more successful grab the second time, seizing the corner of Ford's towel.

She tugged. Ford tugged back. The impetus of the tug allowed Trillian to haul herself out of her resting place and up to a sitting position.

Ford, too, sat up, his reaction to the attempted theft of his towel overcoming his desire to stay put in Arthur's nether regions. He glared at Trillian, fingers wound up in the corner of his towel.

'Ford!' said Trillian, exasperated. It was clear that any chivalrous man would, at this point hand over their towel before heaving Zaphod off Arthur in order to restore the sheet to this damsel in distress. However, the word 'chivalrous' was barely a footnote in Ford's dictionary, being listed only as a useful tool in the entry: 'buttering people up'. This was not the sort of situation that merited exertion in that area.

'Geroff!' he said in his most menacing tone of voice. Trillian stared. Ford stared back, though this only made matters worse as his gaze entirely missed her face and slid down to introduce itself to her breasts which were being altogether too perky for Trillian's liking, given the situation, and just perky enough to distract Ford from his purpose for a second or two.

A frustrated groan from Arthur and another sharp tug on his towel from Trillian brought him back to himself, and with a mighty heave, he succeeded in wrenching the towel from Trillian's grasp.

'Do not try to take my towel again,' he said with a slightly manic look in his eyes. Trillian narrowed hers and hissed,

'I'm undressed here, if you hadn't noticed?'

'Not my fault,' replied Ford carelessly. He turned his attention to Arthur, who was staring impotently at him from between Zaphod's heads. Zaphod was making a valiant effort to get up, but his left head had become inconveniently interested in Arthur's neck and had commenced a sort of slow licking. It was therefore extremely reluctant to be pulled away and was actively working against the rest of Zaphod's best efforts to right himself.

Fo-ord...' called Arthur in a strained voice. Ford slung his towel around his neck and grabbed Zaphod's shoulders,

'You are not,' he said forcefully, 'Going to do this,' he continued, 'When Arthur doesn't want to.'

'Hey baby!' shouted Zaphod as he found himself deposited on the floor, still wrapped in Trillian's sheet. 'I was enjoying myself there. You promised!'

Ford brought his towel back down and held it between him and Zaphod, feet apart, en garde. He pointed with a spare finger,

'I promised when...When I was trying to get into the sack as fast as possible. I cannot be held accountable for promises made in circumstances of extreme desperation.'

Zaphod considered this for a second, and watched Ford advancing on him, towel snapping and flicking through the air in a way that suggested it would be quite painful, actually, if it made contact with bare skin. Ford was showing his full mastery of some of the trickier, cross-hand flicks, and was so wrapped up in his technique that he had reached a stage where he was barely conscious of his so-say opponent, let alone Arthur, when Zaphod had a sudden thought,

'He came here of his own accord, Baby. Can't say fairer than that.'

'Do you know?' asked Arthur, sounding slightly vague. Three heads snapped round to look at him, 'I had a really strange dream just now, but it seems to have gone. I'm just going to find some tea and then everything will be normal again.' He got up and walked towards Ford, pulling up his pyjama bottoms as he went. Ford watched this action regretfully, as did Zaphod, who held out rather less hope of seeing them come down again in the near future.

'My neck is all wet,' said Arthur matter-of-factly to Ford, 'May I just borrow this?' He pulled at the towel and Ford inclined his head forward slightly so that Arthur could release it more easily. Arthur took the towel, and Ford and Zaphod watched him exit the room.

They turned to each other, Ford feeling slightly silly now that he had lost both his weapon of choice and the man he had come to rescue. Zaphod looked appraisingly at Ford's naked form and pouted slightly. Then he cast a glance over at Trillian with his other head and wiggled his eyebrows encouragingly at her.

'Well, now there's just the three of us. How about it, Baby?'


	18. Pushing the Right Buttons

A/N: Okay, so it was a bit of an elastic two weeks... This has sprung itself upon me, as final chapters always do, so without any sort of warning, this is the end. Thank-you lovely reviewing people - turning one-shots into hulking great epics since 1842 ;D  


* * *

**Chapter 18 - Pushing the right buttons  
**

Arthur hurried down the corridor, his presence of mind slowly returning to him as he moved further away from the bedroom. Even so, he felt calmer than he probably ought to. It wasn't that he was exactly happy with what had just happened: embarrassing Trillian and being stripped and molested by Zaphod were not on his list of things to do for a good time. It was more that they were eclipsed by the fact that Ford had come to rescue him. Ford, towel at the ready. Ford, his knight in...well, very little actually.

In many ways, he wished his brain would stop being so damn reasonable. It struck him as complacency. After all, he would have been horrified if Zaphod had actually managed to go through with it...even given what he, Arthur, had said to Ford. To be covered in toffee sauce and have it...licked off...by a Betelgeusian...or two...and maybe even Trillian, who may not have been Ford, but was still quite...

Arthur stopped. His legs had actually turned him round and started to walk him back to the bedroom. He resisted. He drew himself up and smiled as he won out against the terrifying impulse. He turned back and continued to the bridge.

* * *

Ford stared at Zaphod, unable to speak. On the one hand, Arthur had just left the room, taking his towel, and he needed to go after him, to rescue what he could from this shambolic mess and find some way of manoeuvring his way back into bed with the man before _that_ possibility evaporated completely. That meant ignoring Zaphod's offer and all its ramifications. On the other hand, here was a pretty definite offer of sex, here and now; possibly, even probably, with a decent dinner thrown in, and a chance of finding out just how it was that Trillian had managed to keep Zaphod interested for more than a couple of days. Arthur had looked pretty calm when he had left and a minute or ten either way probably wouldn't make that much difference. He could just stay here and reduce the tension by dealing with the most urgent aspects of Zaphod's libido, then go.

It would be entirely wrong to fall for such an offer. I would be shameless and thoughtless and show a distinct lack of tact.

So in fact, when it came down to it, there really was no good reason why Ford Prefect should not scratch his head (which he did,) glance over his shoulder to check that Arthur wasn't on his way back (which he wasn't,) shrug (which he did, still wondering where this irritating habit had come from,) and throw himself back onto the bed, landing just shy of breaking Trillian's legs and earning an appreciative wiggle of the eyebrows from Zaphod.

* * *

Arthur sat down in one of the console chairs on the bridge and leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands, his elbows flirting with some important-looking buttons on the console itself. He gazed at the screen ahead of him, which showed stars and a green grid. He let his mind wander, tracing the green lines with his eyes.

Given permission to wander off on its own, Arthur's mind became mischievous.

_Why not try out the Improbability Drive again?_ it whispered, _It's not as if anything that's _likely_ to happen is going to improve matters._

Arthur sucked at his lip. True, the outlook was not fabulous. He seemed to have temporarily mislaid Ford, and the likelihood was that if nothing changed, he and Ford were going to end up hiding from Zaphod for however long it took to get them back to a place where they could jump ship. At the very least they were probably going to have to endure stony silence from those two mouths, and in addition, it was going to be painfully embarrassing to run into Trillian, knowing that he had seen far more than she was probably comfortable about.

_Just press it. Go on. It'll be exciting._

'Yes, well, I've had quite enough excitement for the time being, thank-you very much,' said Arthur, out loud.

Something caught his ear. He glanced behind him. A squelchy sound was echoing down the corridor. A whiff of pond slime entered the bridge, followed by the mattress.

'Hello! Floom,' said the mattress.

'Hello,' said Arthur, warily.

'What,' it asked innocently, 'are you doing on your own here when there are sounds of company in a room not far distant?'

Not for the first time, Arthur felt a moment's suspicion about the mattress' motives. Why was it so damn interested in having him paired up, or at least in company at all times? This time, he decided to try to find out.

'Why are you so worried?' he asked. The mattress willomied next to him, coming to rest against his ankle like a very closely-groomed dog.

'I volue a deep need for the company of your fellow bipeds,' it offered, its voice wistful and gentle, 'I feel deep in my innermost sprung pockets that you require constant affection and conversation to distract you from the dreadful reality of your existence,' it continued, then went on more brightly, 'But most of all I desire to be of service once more in providing an appropriate surface on which you may perform that curious act which makes you radiate such happiness that I can feel it down to my deepest wadding.' It fell silent and Arthur understood. The mattress was lonely. It was the only one that had still been alive on that carrier ship. It had had no-one to talk to in all of that long journey and it had felt it. It was lonely and needed to go home. Failing that, it needed, actually life-or-death needed, to feel the sort of depth of comforting emotion you get when two people are... Yes. Well. It had obviously used some sort of survival mechanism to persuade Ford and him to stay with it and to do... If it hadn't, would they ever have...? Arthur felt a surge of gratefulness and pity towards the striped mass of fabric and metal. It was pretty unlikely they'd come out anywhere near where it needed to go. Nigh on impossible actually...

Arthur leapt up and hurried over to the opposite side of the console.

'What are you doing, flurble?' asked the mattress. Arthur did not answer. This would not work. There was no way it could. He lifted the protective cover and hesitated, his fingers twitching above the big button. The 'danger' sign above it was provocative. His hand slammed down and the Universe became everything at once.

* * *

Zaphod giggled as he jumped on top of Ford, grabbing at his groin and moving his fingers in a way guaranteed to get Ford on his side. Trillian raised her eyebrows and made a little movement as though she intended to get up and leave them to it, but Zaphod's third arm strayed up to tweak at a hard, pink nipple and his eyes gazed playfully up at her through his fringe and it occurred to her suddenly that this might be fun.

With Arthur there, she couldn't have done it. He was a reminder of Earth, a reminder of all the things you don't do when you're on Earth because you never know who might be watching. Out here, where you could make your own rules, why shouldn't you? Without Arthur here, who was to know? She wriggled down the bed a little to get within better range, and was rewarded with a hot, wet sweep of tongue across her middle, which quickly turned cold as the moisture evaporated. She watched as Ford started to investigate the darkness Arthur had not-quite-seen beneath her sheet, and ran her fingers through his hair until Zaphod tugged at him, stopping him in his tracks and pulling him bodily up to lie level with Trillian. She grinned and snapped playfully at Zaphod's lips as he bent down to her. There were definite advantages to having a boyfriend with two heads when it came to threesomes, she thought as she kissed him and glanced across with half-closed eyes to his other head, which was working with equal keenness on Ford's mouth. Then again, the two mouths thing was nothing to the advantages presented by three hands. It was just another oddity in a long line of extreme peculiarities, that although two hands, both belonging to Zaphod, were stroking and squeezing at her breasts, she could see the rapture on Ford's face as the third hand got to work on the relevant portion of his anatomy.

Ford, however, was keen not to take a back seat. He pushed Zaphod away, admittedly with some reluctance, and rolled him over, across Trillian, who gasped as the air was squashed out of her. Zaphod lay on his back, watching Ford with a knowing look. Ford glanced at him, receiving an almost imperceptible nod and a growing smirk from Zaphod's left head. His hand stroked Ford's leg as Ford swung himself astride Trillian and looked straight into her eyes,

'What is it about you?' he asked, letting himself rub gently across the top of her thigh.

'What is it about Arthur?' she replied, running a hand down his side, fingernails tickling all the way to his hip. Ford stopped and frowned at her. That wasn't fair. He was meant to be having time off. From Arthur? No, that wasn't right. He didn't want _time off_ from Arthur, just...

The Universe became everything at once.

* * *

He was on his back on the mattress. His pyjamas had folded themselves into a neat pile on the chair on which he had just been sitting and he was naked. No... He wasn't quite naked. Artistic swirls of chocolate sauce made Art-Nouveau patterns across the length and breadth of his torso. A certain part of his anatomy now sprung from a nest of whipped cream with...chocolate sprinkles on top, and either he had had some terrible accident with a pair of nipple clamps, or those shiny red carbuncles where he usually kept a sensible pair of little brown nubs, were cherries. His navel was also a pool of red. He took a chance, raised his arm, dipped his finger in and tasted it. Grenadine syrup. Not bad at all actually. He tasted it again and wondered what he should do. Nothing sprang to mind. He wondered why, in all those years of education, no-one had once thought to mention what the correct etiquette is for suddenly finding yourself naked and covered in confectionery while having been sober in the build-up to that moment. He started to hum. It seemed to be the right thing to do.

He was on the second verse of 'To be a Pilgrim' (which had, for some reason leapt from the obscurity of school assemblies to the very forefront of his brain in this moment of crisis,) when he was finally joined by the three other, very confused humanoids.

Zaphod was fully dressed, but plucking at his lapels as if he had never seen them before. Trillian, too, was re-clothed, though looking rather flushed and shifty. Ford was wrapped in Arthur's dressing gown, but a stick of celery protruded above the collar and he seemed to have the remains of a delicate paté and a prawn or two plastered about his person. He stopped when he saw Arthur. He seemed to be caught between whooping like an excited child, and running screaming from the scene. Arthur coughed,

'I think I've worked out what the mattress is up to,' he said nonchalantly. Trillian started to smile, as if she didn't know what else to do with her face. Zaphod looked back and forth between Arthur, Ford and the giant green giraffe nibbling at a potted palm in the corner of the room. To cut down on thinking, he decided to ignore the giraffe; it seemed to be looking after itself for the time being. Ford was going an interesting shade of purple, but he was fully dressed. Much more interesting to stare at Monkey-Man, who was looking the best Zaphod had ever seen him.

'Zaphod, stop staring at Arthur,' said Ford, without once taking his eyes off Arthur.

'Did you activate the Improbability Drive?' asked Trillian, realising that no-one else was going to ask this vital question.

'Yes,' replied Arthur, 'I needed to...that is, I knew it was the only way. Only I'm not sure it worked. This isn't quite the result I had in mind.' He dabbled a finger absently in his whipped cream and sucked at it. Ford took a rather unsteady breath,

'What _did_ you have in mind?' he asked, with more effort than he had expected.

'I was trying to get the mattress home. It needs company. That's why it's being so...pushy.' The mattress sighed floopily and a ripple of agreement ran down its bindings.

Trillian, relieved at having something to do, went to the console and prodded a few buttons. The screen whirled and displayed their position.

'We _have_ moved,' she called, not taking her eyes from the screen, 'We're currently in orbit around a planet called... Squornshellous Zeta.'

'Hey yeah?' asked Zaphod.

'Eddie?' Triallian shouted across the bridge,

'At your service,' came the cheery reply, 'Whatever it is that you want to--'

'What can you tell us about Squornshellous Zeta?' cut in Trillian before he could really get going.

'Well, I can tell you guys, its a whole lot of no-fun. Just swamp and mist and mattresses and...'

Arthur whooped, dislodging one of his cherries,

'It worked!' he cried, a grin plastered across his face. He looked up at Ford who slowly grinned back,

'It can go home!' he said. Then a wicked edge attached itself to his grin and he said,

'But it can zarking well do us one last favour first.' He sank down next to Arthur and addressed the mattress,

'We'll take you home, but first, carry us back to my cabin. I want to eat my dessert in private.'

As the mattress silomed off into the glowing light of the corridor, Ford rested his hand on a non-chocolatey part of Arthur's abdomen, plucked the cherry from his other nipple and popped it in his mouth.


End file.
